


The Spark and the Fire

by mille_libri



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 29,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mille_libri/pseuds/mille_libri
Summary: Broken by the loss of the new life he had planned and the man he was to have become in the process, Boyd turns to the only safety he knows - Ava - and she begins to see him in a new light. Their path through season 2.





	1. Penance

The crickets were chirping in the summer darkness as Boyd gingerly climbed the familiar wooden stairs. He stepped across the porch and tapped lightly on the wooden slat of the screen door with the backs of two knuckles. “Ava?” He waited, uncertain whether to knock once more, then called her name again.

Finally her voice came from inside. “Who’s that?”

He hesitated before naming himself, sure that a Crowder was the last thing she’d want to see right now. But he had come, and he needed to speak his piece, and he would brave the shotgun he was certain was in her hands if that was what was necessary. “It’s Boyd.”

The response came quickly. “You get the hell away from here!”

“I apologize for the late hour, I … I just want a word.”

From inside came the sound he had expected, the ratchet of a slug into the chamber of the shotgun, and even as her footsteps came toward the door Boyd retreated across the porch. By the time the lights came on inside and Ava threw the front door open, he was down the steps, facing her, with his hands in the air.

She opened the screen, stepping out and lifting the shotgun, pointing it directly at his chest. It was no idle threat; they both knew that. She knew how to use it—she had used it on his brother, to great effect, and under significant provocation. And Boyd had pursued her, yes, he had. No doubt he richly deserved her ire as well. “What the hell you want?” she demanded.

“I’m alone, and my hands are empty as you can see.”

Ava brandished the weapon at him. “Yeah, well maybe you can use ‘em to keep this shot from rippin’ open your chest.”

“Well, I can only imagine that you’d want to do that, Ava, given our history.”

“Boyd, I gotta warn you. If I start countin’ down from ten, I may lose patience at five.”

Clearly, if he was going to get across the point of this nocturnal visit, he was going to have to get right down to it, with no preamble. As simply, as sincerely as he could, he said, “I just came to say I’m sorry.”

She took a step backward, shaking her head, like she didn’t understand what he had said. Most likely, she didn’t believe. He couldn’t blame her. For so much of his life, he had been a man who could not be believed.

Boyd stepped backward. “I will leave now, and disturb you no further.” He stepped backward, letting his hands fall, turning away and walking off into the darkness.

He stopped when he heard her call out after him, “Sorry about what?”

Trying to remember the words as he had practiced them, Boyd walked back into the circle of light from the front porch. “So many things that I have done to you.”

“Well, I want to hear this.”

That was encouraging. He hadn’t expected her to be so receptive. “Well, it’s hard to know where to begin,” he said carefully. “I suppose I could start with the last time I saw you. I held you hostage in your own home, and I instigated a shoot-out in your dinin’ room.”

The shotgun didn’t waver in her hands, and her eyes blazed with anger. “That didn’t end so bad, far as I was concerned.”

In truth, it hadn’t ended badly for Boyd, either. It had led directly to his learning to find God, to his learning to become a better man. Through the aegis of Raylan Givens, which was entirely too humorous to be contemplated in a serious moment such as this one. Boyd thought back to the next mile marker in his crimes against Ava. “Well, before that, for years I lusted after you, and I was far from subtle. And that was wrong. Not only because you were my brother’s wife, but because it … it was unseemly, unwanted, and it made you uncomfortable.” Looking at her now, framed against the porch, that shotgun in her hands, Boyd could admit she was a beautiful, wild woman—but he didn’t feel that dreadful urge toward her. Not now that he knew it was wrong. 

“If by uncomfortable, you mean it made my skin crawl, then yes.”

“But by far my biggest regret concerns my brother Bowman.”

“What, you wish he was never born?” Ava’s lips had pinched together at the mention of the name, and Boyd could see the ghost of his brother’s abuse in the tension that had gathered in her body.

“No, no, no,” Boyd hastened to clarify, “I don’t question the will of God bringin’ any soul into this world. My regret is that …” He moved closer to her, wanting her to see how very sorry he really was. “I did nothin’ to stop, or in any way curtail his atrocious behavior. I know how he was, Ava.”

She stiffened, the barrel of the gun wavering in her hands for the first time.

“Yet I took no action, and for that I am deeply, deeply sorry. Now, if there is anything that I can do to atone for that which I have done, I will gladly do it.” He spread his hands apart again, knowing there was a very real possibility that she might shoot him in retribution, and ready to accept that if it was the will of God.

Ava lifted the gun again, leveling it carefully at his chest. “How ‘bout what you do for me is you leave here and you never see me again. Let’s start there.”

It wasn’t what he had hoped for. He had hoped she would give him a chance to truly make up for his sins. But if this was what she needed from him, he would accept it. “All right.” He turned and walked away, satisfied that he had said what needed to be said. If more was to come of it, if Ava required some penance of him, she knew where to find him. He would leave his brother’s widow in peace.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________  
When he was gone, Ava closed the door and leaned back against it, clutching the shotgun to her chest. Let this be the end, she thought. No more of Boyd’s eyes on her, hungry and possessive. No more of Bo’s anger, the anger that never did her a damn bit of good because it always missed the demon that lived inside his sons. No more of Raylan’s easy charm and even easier body, which had never meant what she wanted it to mean. She was on her own now, and that was the way it would stay.


	2. Failed

Boyd wasn’t sure how long he had been walking. His head rung from the blows Johnny had given him, his heart ached from his father’s words, and God seemed lost to him, somewhere far above this empty land where everything he had worked for had come to nought.

Behind him, in the direction of the camp, he heard sounds. Faint sounds. They seemed vaguely familiar, insinuating themselves into his mind. Fireworks?

Guns.

He stopped, looking back. No. It couldn’t be. “No,” he said out loud, turning and running back the way he had come.

“No. No. No.” Whether the words were his breath or just his heartbeat, he wasn’t sure.

By the time he reached his camp, the clearing in the woods where all his work had been focused, where he had begun to create something to make up for all that he had destroyed in his life, it was all over. His men hung from the trees, their blood still dripping sluggishly onto the ground.

Boyd fell to his knees in front of them, wishing he had never left, wishing he had had the strength to stand up to his daddy. The eyes of his men, open and staring at him, wished the same thing.

He raised his arms to the heavens and screamed, wordless, guttural cries drawn from his very soul. All he could muster in this moment.

Time passed, the woods silent but for his steadily hoarsening voice. 

At last he had screamed himself out. No amount more of his grief or his anger would call back what had occurred today or restore the lives of his men. They were with the Almighty now. Maybe at some point the Almighty would deign to share with Boyd the reason he hadn’t been called home along with the others, maybe he wouldn’t. But these men were Boyd’s flock, and he would tend them as he had been called to do.

He got up off his knees and found a hatchet, cutting them all down with as much care as he could take. And then he picked up a shovel and began to dig.

It was full dark by the time the last grave was filled. He had taken his coat off, put it on again, taken it off, put it on again, as the weather and the exertion ebbed and flowed. But it was done now. He could rest. Taking up his Bible, he sank down against the rocks, facing the fresh mounds, his body and soul wearied beyond measure.

He opened the Book, squinting at the words in the light of the lantern he had placed near the graves when the light began to fail. But he could find nothing of comfort in the marks on the page, nothing to approach what he was feeling in this moment. He closed the Book again with a solid thump.

“Dear Heavenly Father, I’m not gon’ pretend to understand. You told me what you wanted done, and that’s what we did.” He panted, trying to catch his breath, trying to feel the presence of the Almighty here in this empty darkness. “How could you let it end like this? All these men …” He gestured at the mounds with the Book in his hand. “Trusted me to lead them on the path of righteousness. For Your Name’s sake.” He looked up, trying to see something, anything, in the trees above him or the stars beyond. “All these men came to You because they believed in me.” Tears were gathering in his eyes, thickening his throat. He looked down at the Bible in his hands, the Bible which hadn’t stopped what happened today. “And now they’re dead.” He looked up toward God again. “I’m gon’ need a sign. I’m gon’ need to know that their sacrifice meant somethin’ to You.”

But there was nothing. No sign. No word. Nothing anywhere but himself, Boyd Crowder, who had failed, again, and been failed, by fathers both earthly and heavenly.

He no longer felt the need to cry. What would be the point of tears? “Maybe,” he whispered, “I’ve just been talkin’ to myself this whole time.”

If God wasn’t real, then what had he been doing here? Nothing of value. And what was there left for him, in Harlan or anywhere? Again, nothing of value.

He got up from the ground, leaving the camp there just as it was, a final resting place for everything he had hoped to become, and began to walk.


	3. Lost

Ava was just cleaning up the kitchen after her supper when it happened. She had been waiting for it, with heightened anticipation since Boyd’s visit the other night. At first, she had thought Boyd was there on his father’s say-so—she still wasn’t quite sure he hadn’t been. But now another voice was calling her from outside her house, and it was time to face the music.

She pulled aside the curtain, seeing Boyd and Bowman’s cousin Johnny standing there. He put his hands up in a surrender pose when he saw her, calling out, “Hey, Ava.”

He might look defenseless, but he sure as hell wasn’t. Still, she had to come out eventually, and it might as well be while she could see what was coming. Ava unlocked the door, shotgun in hand, and stepped out on the porch. “What are you doin’ here, Johnny?”

Johnny had never been a good liar. He hesitated too long before answering, so she wouldn’t have believed him even if he weren’t Johnny Crowder. “It’s Raylan. Got some bad news.”

Ava lifted the shotgun, pointing it at him—but the ruse had worked enough for their purposes, she guessed, because as she took a step toward Johnny, gloved hands came out of the darkness and grabbed the gun barrel, jerking it out of her hands. She shrieked, but it was already too late. Bo’s men, since that was who they had to be, put a bag over her head and held her steady, despite her struggles.

Behind her, she could hear Bo’s voice, and she shouted more, kicking and twisting. They weren’t taking her without a fight. 

And then something collided with her forehead, and she was gone, somewhere far away from Harlan.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Boyd hadn’t been entirely certain where he expected the car to take him when he got in and started driving. He merely let it gather speed and pilot itself down the highway. When it pulled in to the motel where Raylan lived, he wasn’t entirely surprised. Who else would understand the way fathers and sons worked in Harlan? Raylan was as much a mystery to Arlo as Boyd was to Bo. 

When he opened the door, he found two dead bodies at his feet. Dead men everywhere. There was no getting away from them. He hoped he wouldn’t have to bury these. 

Raylan came from the bathroom, reaching for his gun immediately, but he halted when he saw Boyd. 

“What in God’s name, Raylan?”

“Your daddy sent ‘em after me.”

“Dear Lord.” Boyd couldn’t draw his eyes away from the men. Was there no end to the number of lives his father would be responsible for ending today?

“What are you doin’ here?” Raylan demanded.

Boyd shook his head, trying to find words. Usually he had a surfeit of them, enough and to spare for every occasion, but today … “I—I am lost, Raylan.” It was all he could think of to say.

“The hell’s that mean?”

“I sent my flock to slaughter.”

“I’m not followin’ you. Boyd?”

“My … my daddy, he …” Boyd couldn’t form the words. He could barely think. “He—he killed all my men, Raylan.” He saw the bed and thought it would be good to sit down, so he did. “Killed all of ‘em,” he repeated.

Something beeped next to him, repetitively. Raylan’s cell phone. He stepped past Boyd, never taking his hand from the gun, and reached for the phone. 

From his seat on the bed, Boyd could see into the bathroom, where Arlo Givens sat, a blood-stained bandage on his arm. Unusual though it was to see both Givens men in the same room, Boyd could barely register enough curiosity to ask what had happened.

“He took a bullet,” Raylan answered, with his admirable succinctness. Putting the phone to his ear, he said, “Ava?” And then he froze, the concern in his expression cooling and hardening, the phone still pressed to his ear. “You’re on Ava’s phone,” he said to the person on the other end of the line. After a moment, he continued, “So, what happens now? … Yeah, I figured that. … I’ll be alone. … My life for hers?”

Somewhere along the way Boyd’s weary brain followed enough to understand what happened. His daddy hadn’t been satisfied with taking away Boyd’s men, ruining his dream, he had to go after Ava, too, to punish her for finally standing up to Bowman.

When Raylan put the phone down, Boyd summoned up the energy to ask. “He has Ava?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s he want you to go?”

Raylan was already checking his gun, preparing to leave. “West towards Bulletville.”

Boyd could feel his head beginning to clear, the adrenaline of a situation that needed to be dealt with catapulting him out of the depths. “He has a cabin out in Brody Holler.”

“Is that right?”

Standing up, sure now of what he needed to do, Boyd said, “I know every inch of Brody Holler.”

Raylan looked at him, calculating the odds, trying to decide if he thought Boyd was in this with his daddy. It was a good question, and there had been a time it would have been true—but that time was not today.

“All right. Let’s go.”


	4. Sniper

Boyd and Raylan were quiet in the car for a while, both worried for Ava, both angry with their fathers. Raylan drove steadily, staring straight ahead out the window.

Dawn was coming before he spoke. “How many men he got with him?”

Boyd thought about it, tried to count. “Well, you got Heckle and Jeckle, so that leaves Hesler, Rufus, my cousin Johnny, and two other men.”

“Any of ‘em good with a gun?” My, but Raylan was cool. There was no emotion in his voice. Boyd had no doubt Raylan believed he could take them all. And maybe he could.

“They’re not as good as you,” he told his old friend, meaning it sincerely.

Raylan’s eyebrows went up, trying to determine whether Boyd was merely blowing smoke, and he almost cracked a smile. At last he said, “You were tellin’ the truth, huh? This conversion.”

This was it, the moment Boyd had wanted to arrive at, the chance to talk these things through with his old friend, but he no longer knew what he wanted to say. “Was I? I don’t know now, Raylan, I’m so confused.”

“Yeah.” Raylan snorted a little. His momentary belief had passed, and he was back to working through in his mind whatever plan he imagined Boyd must have.

“Do you believe in God?” Boyd asked. Suddenly the answer seemed very important.

Raylan thought it over, taking the question seriously. “I do.”

“Tell me about your God, Raylan.”

“Eh, you know. White hair, long beard, sits on a heavenly throne.”

The seriousness had passed. As was his wont, Raylan had deflected the question with humor. Boyd was not surprised. And it didn’t matter anyway. He was no longer certain what he believed, except that everything that had happened yesterday, and everything that would happen today, was his fault. “I set all this into motion, didn’t I?”

“Actually,” Raylan offered, “I think me shootin’ Tommy Bucks might’ve had somethin’ to do with it.”

“Do you regret it? In the face of all that has come since?”

“He didn’t leave town when I told him to. He brought it on himself.”

Which was yet another way of avoiding giving a straight answer to a direct question, Boyd noted.

“If it adds to your thought process any, I’ll tell you that I’m both sorry and glad that you’ve come back to Harlan.”

Raylan glanced briefly at him, one eyebrow popping as he considered the comment. “Oh, it adds to my thought processes. Maybe a little too much.”

“I do always like to provoke thought.”

“That you do,” Raylan agreed. “That you do.”

They pulled up on the road to the cabin, far enough away that no one would be aware of their arrival.

“I’ll approach them straight up the front, you go around the back. If you can get Ava out, do it,” Raylan told him.

“Well, I’m gonna need a gun.”

Raylan gave that some thought. He took out his gun, weighing it in his hands, his concerns over whether Boyd was trustworthy in this particular instance clear on his face. At last he decided in favor, and handed the gun over.

Boyd got out of the car, tucking the gun into his waistband.

From inside the car came Raylan’s voice. “Understand, Boyd, you take advantage of this situation, I’ll hunt you down like a dog. If I’m not dead.” Glancing at Boyd out the open door, he added, “And you’re not dead.”

“Were you afraid you give me a gun I’d turn it on you?” Boyd asked.

Without another word, Raylan drove off, avoiding a direct question once more. The tires passing mere centimeters from the toes of Boyd’s boots were answer enough on both sides. He shut the car door as it passed and began making his way through the woods around toward the back of the cabin. He believed Ava would be alive. His father wouldn’t balk at killing a woman, especially the woman who had killed his beloved son, but he wouldn’t want to do it as long as he thought he could get something of value for keeping her alive. After all, a person only had one life to trade. Once spent, the coin could never be used again.

At least, that’s what Boyd told himself as he passed between the trees. In truth, that was more his own thought process than his father’s, but it was comforting to believe just at the moment—and he would know the truth soon enough. No sense in dwelling on it now.

He reached the back of the cabin unmolested, disappointed in his father’s arrogance. Had he really believed Raylan Givens would come alone? 

To Boyd’s great relief, Ava was alive, tied up and gagged on the floor of the cabin. Her eyes lifted to his as he came quietly in through the door, one finger to his lips. Unnecessary, since she was gagged, but she could still make noise if she thought he was there to kill her, and that would not be good for anyone. One of his father’s men stood next to her, his attention so riveted on what was outside the window that he hadn’t heard the faint creak of the door.

Boyd raised the gun, steadying it, and gave a low whistle. The man turned, raising his own gun as he did so, and Boyd shot him through the neck. A justified shooting, self-defense, he thought. Raylan would be pleased.

Ava squealed in surprise behind the gag as the gun sounded in the room, and outside, Raylan took advantage of the distraction to get on top of the situation.

As Raylan led his father toward the cabin, Boyd came out, his gun leveled at his father's head. “Raylan, I’m gonna need you to step away from my father.”

“Boyd?” Raylan asked, confused as to which of them Boyd was intending to menace, as they were both fully in his line of fire. “You don’t want to do that.”

It was true, either way. Boyd didn’t want to shoot either his father or his old friend, but one of them richly deserved it.

His father was smiling, seeing Boyd’s presence as salvation.

“Not something I want to do, my friend, but something I have to do.” Keeping his intentions obscure, Boyd moved closer. “Step back, please.”

“You didn’t come to save my ass, did you, boy?” his father asked, the picture finally coming clear to him.

“No, Daddy, I did not.” The hand holding the gun quivered a bit and Boyd reached his other hand to steady it.

“You gonna shoot me, son? Are you?”

“Maybe.”

“It don’t really seem right. I had a chance to kill you and I didn’t do it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Daddy. More’n one way to kill a man. You can kill his physical body, or you can kill the spirit within.”

His father had never been one for metaphysical arguments. “You gon’ pull the trigger or you gonna talk me to death?”

The sound of the gunshot was loud in Boyd’s ears, and a spray of blood erupted from his father’s chest. It took him a moment to realize that he had not been the one doing the shooting.

Raylan was quicker on the uptake, looking around for the sniper. Boyd could only stare in horror as his Daddy fell to his knees on the ground, his eyes widening as the realization of his death came to him. But there was no time for contemplation of the situation, because the next shot took Boyd in the shoulder, knocking him back onto the ground. He was up again as quick as he could even as more shots rang out and he and Raylan scrambled for the comparative safety of the interior of the cabin.


	5. Pressure

There was no further gunfire for a while after they closed the cabin door behind themselves. While Raylan checked for more weapons, Boyd sank down next to Ava under the window and untied her as best he could with one hand. The wound in his shoulder throbbed, but he’d be all right for a while.

He handed Ava a gun, and leaned his head back against a cabinet built into the corner of the wall.

“What happened out there?” Ava asked.

“Gunshots,” Raylan answered succinctly.

“Yeah, I think I got that part. But who was doin’ the shooting? Who are these people?”

Raylan was by the window, peeking out the front. Outside, Boyd could hear the swish of tires on the dirt road. More arriving, then. “Raylan, who’s out there?”

“Miami gun thugs, I suspect.”

Ava frowned. “What do they want?”

“Me,” Raylan said, as though it should have been obvious. It probably should have, Boyd reflected.

“You thinkin’ about giving yourself up to save us?” Ava asked him.

“If I thought that’d work, I might consider it, but I’m gettin’ the impression they intend to kill us all.”

Boyd tried to think over the pain. “How many you figure are out there?”

“More’n one.” 

“I think I saw two in the trees,” Ava said.

“Looks like we got two more in the vehicle.” Over his shoulder, Raylan called, “Ava?”

“Raylan?”

“Next time I ask you to get out of Harlan …”

“I’ll get the hell out of Harlan!”

“You do seem to have a penchant for gettin’ abducted.”

“Well, hey, it’s a knack.”

During their banter, Boyd had been thinking about his father, about the surprised look on Bo’s face as he fell. It wasn’t clear to Boyd if his father had thought Boyd had shot him after all, or if he had known Boyd hadn’t yet been able to work up the determination. “Is my daddy movin’?” he asked Raylan. 

“No.”

The word was flat and uncompromising. Undeniable. Boyd could pretend that his father was playing possum, but shot through the chest like that? He would have moved because of the pain by now. Boyd would have to face the fact: His father was dead. It wasn’t a reality he had considered, life after Bo. He had been so focused on his revenge; that had been the end game. Now … well, what would he do now? Other than get out of here alive, that was.

Of course, if he had to be trapped in a cabin surrounded by people who wanted to kill him, Raylan Givens was the man he’d want to be trapped with. Cool-headed, resourceful, and a hell of a shot.

Raylan shifted from one window to another, looking out. “Okay. Ava?”

“Yeah?”

“That window over your right shoulder.”

“Yeah?”

“When I say, stick your gun out and take two shots.”

“At what?” Ava snapped.

“Don’t matter.” Raylan’s voice was calm.

“All right.”

“Now,” Raylan said, and Ava stuck the gun out the window and fired off her shots. Immediately, Raylan fired out his window at the back of the cabin.

The worst part of having been shot, Boyd reflected, was how much more fun this would be if he was up and about, helping Raylan with the plan. The two of them, working together … they’d be out of here in no time.

“One down,” Raylan said, and moved from that window to the next.

Boyd had had his hand over the wound in his shoulder since he’d come in, but the blood was starting to pulse out between his fingers. He’d need to put more pressure on. Looking around, he saw a cloth on the table over Ava’s shoulder. No doubt it was filthy, but would have to suffice. “Can you hand me that rag?”

She scootched over and pulled it down off the table, careful not to let her head or hand appear in the window to form a target, and then shifted back over, sticking the bundled up cloth under Boyd’s shirt and holding it there, maintaining pressure. 

Boyd groaned at the contact. Hopefully they wouldn’t be in here much longer. He’d be useless if he lost too much more blood. He wondered if any of his father’s men would be coming out to the cabin looking for them. His cousin might show up, he imagined. “Where’s Johnny?” he asked Ava.

“Bo shot him at my house. Said that he betrayed him to you. Said everyone would think that I—I shot another Crowder and ran.”

“Is he dead?” Boyd felt a pang of guilt at that. Johnny was a bit on the gutless side, and always out for his own gain, but still, he was family, and if what Ava said was true, it was Boyd’s fault he’d been shot.

“I don’t know,” Ava answered. “He’s gut-shot.”

Gut-shot, lying there at Ava’s untended all this time? Johnny was almost certainly dead. “Oh, dear Lord.”

Two more shots came from the back of the cabin and Raylan rushed into the room where Boyd and Ava sat huddled together under the window. He slid across the floor to avoid creating a target, and shouted through the open window, “I got your man out back! That leaves three of us, only two of you. You start walkin’, we’ll hold our fire.”

It was a good bluff, and Raylan had delivered it well—but the rain of gunfire from an automatic weapon that came through the wall and windows in response indicated that the unknown assailants weren’t interested in the offer. The three of them huddled on the ground, waiting for the guns to empty themselves, or the shooters to grow bored, whichever came first.

Boyd groaned. The wound in his shoulder had not been improved by his sudden movement.

“You guys good?” Raylan asked breathlessly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” Boyd answered. What was a gunshot in the shoulder? A minor inconvenience. “You good, Ava?”

“Yeah.” 

“You didn’t happen to bring your rocket launcher, did ya?” Raylan asked.

“I didn’t think to pack one.”

From outside came a woman’s voice. “All we want is Raylan Givens!”

“I’m Raylan Givens!”

Boyd shouted, “No, I’m Raylan Givens!” After all, why should Raylan have all the fun?

“You tryin’ to be funny?” Raylan demanded.

“A little.”

The woman’s voice promised, “We get Givens, the other two can walk.”

Boyd looked at Raylan across the room. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere. They killed my daddy.”

“You came here to kill your daddy yourself.”

“Well, that’s different.”

“How?”

“You got to kill the two men who came after your daddy, you give me the same courtesy.”

“Why don’t we all just run?” Ava suggested.

“Well, someone’s gotta keep ‘em here for the other two to have a chance,” Raylan said. “And if we all stay here, night comes, we’re dead.” They were all silent for a moment, as Raylan waited for Boyd to volunteer to go, and Boyd waited for Raylan to volunteer to go, and Ava waited for them both to make up their minds already.

“I’ll stay, then,” Boyd said. 

“Boyd. I’m askin’ ya. Take Ava out of here.”

Boyd looked over at Ava. That would be the manly thing to do, and he was compromised by the shoulder wound … but these people had killed his daddy and taken away his vengeance. Then he looked at Raylan and remembered how all-fired stubborn his old friend could be, and knew it wasn’t worth any further argument. He looked at Ava. “Come on.” He kept low, moving past Raylan as he lay there on the floor.

Behind him, Ava considered being stubborn her own self, but appeared to reach the same conclusion regarding Raylan’s obstinacy that Boyd had, and she came after him. They went out the back, making their way through the woods, leaving Raylan shouting at the assailants. 

“We really going to leave him here?” Ava whispered at him.

“Hell, no. They shot my daddy. You go, I’ll stay with Raylan.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but there was no time, so she went, running like an antelope, Boyd thought admiringly, watching her for a moment before he made his way around the cabin, moving quickly from tree to tree.

Boyd saw Raylan come out of the cabin, hands in the air, and a woman move out from around the big black SUV parked there, her hands also in the air—and then he saw a man come from behind the car with a gun leveled at Raylan. As the woman whipped out the gun she’d stuffed in her waistband, Boyd shot the man with the rifle he had taken off their dead compatriot behind the cabin, cursing at the wound in his shouler for having spoiled his aim. He’d clipped the man in the side, but not killed or incapacitated him, and a spray of bullets flew his way in response. Boyd ducked behind the tree, letting it take the brunt of the gunfire.

Raylan’s hidden gun finished the man off, and then he hid behind one of the stone columns of the cabin porch while the woman kept shooting at him, covering her own retreat back to the comparative safety of the car. She made it, whipping the car around and heading back the way she had come even as Raylan ran after her, firing a stream of bullets into the vehicle. He shattered the back window, but didn’t slow her down.

Boyd came out of the trees to join him.

“Is he dead?” Raylan asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Where’s Ava?”

“She’s running through the woods. Where you goin’?”

“I’m goin’ after the young lady with the automatic weapon.”

Boyd leveled the rifle at his old friend to punctuate his next words. “I’ll get her.”

Raylan turned around, and they watched each other, taking each other’s measure yet again. “What’re you gonna do after you get her?”

“I ain’t quite figured that out yet. You gonna shoot to stop me?” In an even face-off, Boyd thought he had a fair chance to take Raylan, but in his current condition, even having the edge was no guarantee.

“Maybe.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re empty.”

“You gon’ bet your life on that?”

They looked at one another, and Boyd was moved to tell the God’s honest truth. “No, Raylan, I’m gonna bet my life on you bein’ the only friend I have left in this world.”

Raylan didn’t move; neither did he argue with the statement, surprising though it may have been, and Boyd put the gun down and headed toward his daddy’s car. The keys were in it, as he had suspected they would be, and he put it in gear, ignoring the intensifying pain in his shoulder.

He turned the car around and drove it past where Raylan still stood, the two of them sharing one more look before Boyd drove away, sure as he had ever been of anything that Raylan was considering shooting him anyway … and equally sure that Raylan wouldn’t do it.


	6. Waiting

Boyd steered the car along the dirt road, pushing the gas pedal to catch up with the Miami woman’s SUV. That was a bigger and a faster car than his, and she had a lead on him, but he was Boyd Crowder, and today he would prevail.

His determination to get revenge for the killing of his father, and to get something back for himself after having his father’s life snatched right out from under his own retributory hands, kept his mind sharp despite the steady trickle of blood from the shoulder wound that wet his shirt and seeped under his belt in a truly uncomfortable manner. As long as he could stay on the road, he could catch her, and then she would rue the day she had appeared in Harlan and taken on the Crowders.

The Crowders, he thought. Not that they existed any longer. His father lay dead back in Bulletville, and Johnny undoubtedly was gathering flies on Ava’s porch if she was to be believed, and he saw no reason to doubt her description of events. That left Boyd as the only remaining Crowder. Boyd, and Ava herself. Crowder by marriage she might be, but in many ways she was as ruthless and bent on destruction as if it was her born name. Boyd had to wonder what she would do now that no one was after her attempting to avenge Bowman’s death. She had married his brother when she was so young—too young to be certain of who she was or who she intended to be. Now that the world lay before her … at least, the world as contained within Harlan County, Kentucky … how would she tackle it? What would she want from it?

A casual observer of the past few months would imagine she might move on with Raylan, but Boyd knew both his old friend and his former sister-in-law very well, and what he had seen of them in that cabin had not indicated a relationship in good health. Raylan was a troubled soul, always had been, and too charming for his own good. Women came easily to him—but he had a hard time keeping them. Or so it had been in their youth, and Boyd had seen no sign that things had changed in the fullness of Raylan’s maturity.

A squirrel darted across the road and Boyd swerved to avoid it, his shoulder bumping against the door as he did. A stab of pain shot through him, the road blurring in front of him for a moment, and he felt a great weariness settle on him. 

“There is no time for this,” he told himself sternly. There would be time to rest later, when he had accomplished the task before him. With an effort, he straightened the car, pushing down on the pedal to spur the machine on to even greater speed.

All too soon the moment he had dreaded was upon him—a fork in a paved road, with no dirt marks to tell him which direction his quarry had taken. He brought the car to a halt and leaned his head on the steering wheel, allowing his eyes to close briefly.

Not briefly enough. Boyd jerked himself back to alertness with an effort. He did not yet have the luxury of either giving way to the weakness in his limbs brought on by blood loss or of going to get himself patched up. He needed to think, and to think clearly.

Getting out of the car, he walked to the trees on the side of the road, leaning his head against the rough bark. If he was a Miami gun thug, and a female one at that, where would he be going right now? A base in Harlan? No. Those contacts would be known by the Marshal service, and she knew that Raylan was unharmed and could call for backup. No, her best bet would be to make her way out of Harlan County altogether. That big powerful car she was driving would take her a long way—but Boyd didn’t believe she would be interested in driving all the way back to Miami, even if it was the quickest way to get beyond his reach and Raylan’s and back into the protection of her own people.

The airport, then. To await a small plane that could fly her back. That was where she would go. And Boyd would take the few moments needed to bind his shoulder and try to stem the flow of blood long enough, and then he would be there waiting for her.

She had killed a Crowder. Before she left Kentucky, she would face her own end at the hands of another. That was how justice worked.


	7. Semantics

He sat watching at the airport for hours, waiting, enduring the throbbing in his shoulder as some kind of penance for having failed at his own task. Perhaps his father would have been dead either way—but at least if Boyd had shot him it would have been justified. Retributive. Well-earned. This way … his daddy was just another casualty in a long line of mistakes, which was hardly a fitting end for a Crowder.

Rain began to pour as the daylight waned, and Boyd began to wonder if perhaps he had been wrong. What could have taken her so long? Was she injured? He hadn’t thought as much. Had she had transportation issues? Those could be inconvenient, he allowed, feeling almost sympathetic as he leaned back beneath the shelter of a conveniently placed tarp over some crates.

At last, almost simultaneously, a semi pulled up and a small plane landed, and Boyd understood—she had been waiting for the arrival of her people. A private plane sent from Miami, rather than charter one in Kentucky.

Well, he was already here. And he had waited long enough.

As soon as the semi pulled to a stop, he yanked the door open, wrapped an arm around her waist, and hauled her out, dropping her on her backside on the wet tarmac. A gun flew from her hand, indicating that he had been just in time to save the life of the trucker she had kidnapped. His good deed for the day, it appeared.

He retrieved the gun. Waste not, want not, as his granddaddy had always said. When a tool came to hand so conveniently, it was just as well to use it. He cocked it and aimed it at her head.

And then from behind him he heard the voice that had bedeviled him all day calling his name. Raylan Givens. The Jiminy Cricket to his Pinocchio, and about as welcome at this particular moment.

He glanced over his shoulder, rain running down his face unchecked, and hollered, “How ‘long you been followin’ me?”

“Truck stop. I can take it from here, all right.”

He’d known the visit to the truck stop had been a mistake—but a man needed sustenance, after all, even if it came wrapped in plastic. But he wasn’t going to let Raylan Givens, however intrepid, get between him and the vengeance he had come for. “I think I got it from here, Raylan.”

“You just gonna execute her?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it an execution. More like retribution. She killed my daddy.”

“That’s what you wanted to do! And besides, the gun thug behind the tree killed your daddy, and I got him.”

Semantics, Boyd thought. It was the principle of the thing. “Are you gonna split hairs with me?”

“I’m just sayin’.”

“Well, what’s to stop me from pullin’ this trigger, Raylan? That it would be a sin?” What had happened to the man who believed God’s Word, who had been the Lord's shepherd on earth? He was gone. Boyd had felt his spirit leave, and what stood here now was nothing but a shell … but a shell who knew what his duty was to his father, and to himself.

Raylan’s voice came strong and certain. “Don’t get me wrong, I have no moral objection to you killin’ her. You understand, miss? The life you’ve led.”

The woman on the ground wasn’t paying any attention to Raylan, which was intelligent, given the pistol Boyd was pointing at her.

Raylan finished, in a different tone, his professional tone, “But I need her. Alive.”

“And if I don’t comply?”

The answer came in gunshots. For a split second, Boyd thought they were aimed at him, but he had never been slow on the uptake, and he realized the bullets were passing over his shoulder, turned, and fired in his own right at the man emerging from the airplane, even as the woman on the ground cried out.

The man in the airplane got off some impotent rounds from his high-powered weapon before falling backward into the plane. Boyd and Raylan watched for a moment to be sure he was dead, then turned their eyes to the woman, who was still groaning, clearly now in pain. Her compatriot had been shooting at her, then … or had been an unfortunately poor shot.

Raylan holstered his weapon. “Boyd. Nice shot.” And then his fist came out of nowhere, smashing into Boyd’s face. 

Boyd fell backward against the cab of the truck, the throbbing in his face joining the cadence with the throbbing in his shoulder, which he had been able to ignore up till now but no longer could. As he sagged against the cab, Raylan relieved him of his weapon.

Through the window of the cab, Raylan shouted at the truck driver to take Boyd to the hospital. Weakened and in pain, lost and adrift in so many ways, Boyd no longer had the strength to argue, even as Raylan grasped the woman’s arm and hauled her, grunting and protesting all the way, to the plane.


	8. Departing

As Boyd lay in the hospital bed, feeling the stitches in his shoulder itch, he was tempted just to let go, to drift off into sleep knowing he was being looked after, to let the thoughts that he had held back all day with vengeance and pain and determination be held off for a while longer with pain medication and sleep. But nothing had ever been accomplished by wishing away the time, or by giving up. Crowder men didn’t quit, not until they had enough lead in them to keep them down, and Boyd was far from that benchmark by a long, long way. 

So he opened his eyes and looked up at the industrial lights in the ceiling and thought about his next step. His men were dead. His daddy was dead. His chance at vengeance had flown off into the night with his former friend. What was he now? Who was he? 

He was a Crowder. That he had always been. But if he was the last remaining Crowder, that no longer meant as much as it once had. In fact, it was a heavier burden by far, because he and he alone could define what and who a Crowder was.

It was no longer an evangelist, he was sure of that. No longer a spiritual leader of men. Uncertain of his own spirit, Boyd felt content to let other men pray or not, as they chose, and to whom they chose. If there was a God, and if He had any use for Boyd Crowder, He would show Himself in His own time … and in the meanwhile, Boyd didn’t intend to bother his head any further about it.

But if he was no longer going to lead men spiritually, could he step into his daddy’s shoes and lead them toward wealth and power by means of the narcotics trade? Boyd considered that, and felt nothing but distaste. That was no way for a man to make a living, luring others on to their destruction.

He sighed, having felt certain of his eventual destination in his heart long before he had allowed himself down this theoretical path. Coal dust was in his very blood and bones. It was the beating heart of Kentucky, the honorable profession of countless men now and in the past. And—Boyd allowed himself this small amount of pride—he had been good at it. Yes, he had.

Movement in the hallway outside his room caught his attention, and he lifted his head, ignoring the twinge of pain in his shoulder as he did so. The floor was mostly quiet at night, but a nurse had passed by, studying a clipboard as she went.

The sight of her wakened Boyd from his reverie and brought into focus the true peril of his situation. He couldn’t stay here. Sooner or later, the law—no doubt in the form of the always indefatigable Raylan Givens—would come knocking on the door of this room where he reposed in all the indignity of a hospital gown, and would almost certainly have a reason to return him to incarceration for some period of time. And that was something Boyd would far rather avoid, if possible for the rest of his life.

No, he would have to get moving. He lay for a minute, gathering his strength, listening out in the hall. The nurse came back, heading down toward the nurses’ station. She would likely remain there for some time, he imagined, unless another patient called for her. He would just have to chance that.

Fortunately, he could see the plastic bag containing his clothes lying on a chair by the window. They had cut him out of his shirt, but the coat should still be in good enough shape to get him where he was going.

That he was not certain of where that was didn’t worry him at the moment. Departing from the hospital was the current objective; everything else could wait until he was out. 

Quietly, he eased himself out of the bed, collecting the bag and bringing it back so he could duck back under the covers if the nurse passed by again. He dressed with haste and efficiency, hampered only slightly by the fact that everything was still so sodden from the rain and being bundled hastily into a bag.

Soon enough he was dressed, and he poked his head cautiously out the door. The nurse was leaning back in her chair, a tabloid open in her hands, engrossed by the transgressions of celebrities. 

From there, it was smooth sailing, and he stood in the hospital parking lot looking up at the night sky. 

Now what? His belongings were back at the camp. He could go there tomorrow in the daylight, but he could not go there tonight. Despite everything that had happened since, the loss of his men, of the dream he had built there, was too fresh.

It came to him that he wasn’t really the last Crowder. There was another one. The question was, would she open the door to his knock, or shoot him through the door? Unable to think of another place to go, Boyd decided he was willing to chance it.


	9. Sanctuary

Things were a bit of a mess at Ava’s, which surprised Boyd until he remembered that he wasn’t the only Crowder who had had a bad day yesterday. He could see the broken pieces of porch rail where Johnny must have fallen into the bushes, but the body was gone. Wearily, Boyd hoped someone had taken care of his cousin’s body the way it should have been taken care of, but he was too heartsick, too drained to care beyond the passing thought.

Lights were on inside the house, though, and Ava’s truck was parked out front. Seeing it, Boyd realized that part of him had hoped she wouldn’t be home. He would have had nowhere else to go, true, but he would have been spared the indignity—and possibly the shot in the gut—that was to come once he climbed the steps and knocked on the door.

But he had come this far, and to go anywhere else was to strain what was left of his energies. He hadn’t eaten in … well, he wasn’t certain. And he thought he remembered his last meal coming back up as he mourned the lost in what had been his camp. The hospital hadn’t fed him, and the medication they’d given him was wearing off, if the returning throb in his shoulder was any indication. He was going to have to stop making a habit of getting shot, he thought. Then he amended the thought to maybe he would have to stop allowing his path to cross with that of Raylan Givens. That did seem to be where the problem lay.

Still, here he was at Ava’s, and he could only hope Raylan wouldn’t be similarly drawn to her door. They had hardly appeared lover-like in the cabin, but it hadn’t exactly been a good time for spooning.

He put one foot on the bottom step, then slowly, one at a time, navigated the rest of the steps.

By the time he reached the porch, the door was open, the shotgun was in her hands, and her foot was tapping the doorjamb impatiently. “What you want, Boyd?”

“I—I came for …” Words failed him. He wondered at that, as if from a long distance off. Then one came to him, and he muttered it even as he felt the porch recede from beneath his feet. “Sanctuary.”

When he came to, he was lying on Ava’s couch. His head hurt, his shoulder hurt—actually, both shoulders hurt. She had probably dragged him by the good arm to get him here.

Ava was sitting in a chair, leaning forward, watching him, her face set and her shotgun propped up next to her within easy reach. “What’d you mean, sanctuary?”

Boyd sat up, holding his head as it pounded, trying to think. “I meant …” He gave a weary sigh. “I have nowhere to go.”

“Come on, now. Bo’s got cabins and hidey-holes all over these mountains.”

“I can’t go there. His men—My men. He killed my men, Ava. He killed my dream.”

She snorted. Ava had never been much for dreams; she traded mostly in realities. Always had.

“His men wouldn’t follow me,” Boyd said, bringing the conversation into the realm where she was most comfortable. “They think I’m … touched.”

“They’re not the only ones. You hit your head when you got shot?”

“No. I—“ He looked at her, really looked at her. “I want a new start, Ava.”

That caught her attention. “Don’t we all.” She narrowed her eyes. “You mean you aren’t takin’ up where your daddy left off?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t want anything to do with that mess.”

“So what do you want?”

“Could I—could I stay here? I’d be handy around the house, I could fix that porch—“

“Johnny didn’t die,” she interrupted him. “He was still livin’ when they carted him off to the hospital.”

“Was he, now? He always was tough,” Boyd said. “And stubborn.”

“He’s a Crowder, ain’t he?” Ava even smiled a little when she said it.

“Seems to come with the name.”

“Maybe so. You’d pay rent?”

“Soon as I get a job.”

“And you’d stay out of my hair? ‘Cause I want a fresh start, too, and I don’t want you gettin’ in my way.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Boyd didn’t mention the name of Raylan Givens, but it hung in the air. Ava’s sour face seemed to indicate her fresh start was to be in more ways than one.

She frowned, looking him over. “You look like somethin’ the cat dragged in. When’d you eat last?”

“I can’t seem to recall.”

“All right, come in the kitchen, we’ll see what’s left over. Don’t think I’m gonna make a habit of cookin’ for you.”

“I won’t,” he promised, getting up off the couch. The room swam, but only a little, so he followed her unsteadily to the kitchen.

She pulled a butcher knife from the block and came up to him, jabbing the point against the middle button of his shirt. “You try anything, I’ll kill you. You steal anything from me, get me in any kind of trouble, or even look at me wrong, you’re out of here, and I’ll call your marshal friend to haul your ass to jail. You got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ava kept the knife where it was, her eyes on Boyd’s, for another few breaths before deciding, grudgingly, to take him at his word, at least for now. “Sit down, I’ll get you some ice tea.”

“You got any bourbon?”

“In your condition? You’ll drink ice tea and you’ll like it.”

Boyd couldn’t help smiling. “Whatever you say.” He leaned back in the chair, his head drooping onto his chest. It was warm here in the kitchen, the sounds of Ava fixing supper were familiar and comforting, and he felt like he could rest for the first time in a long while. He drifted off to sleep long before she set the glass of tea in front of him.


	10. Changed

Ava lay in her bed, listening to the sounds in and around the house. Usually this was comforting, the creaks and chirps and hoots a familiar lullaby. But in the last few weeks there had been added a new set of sounds, the thumps and sighs of the boards as Boyd paced in his room, moving around, doing God-knew-what in there. Ava didn’t even want to think about it—but she couldn’t help it, lying here awake in the dark every night, a knife hidden beneath her mattress, waiting for him to go back to what he used to be.

By day, it was easy to believe in this transformation, to watch him pack his lunch and head off to the mines every morning, to impatiently put a plate of supper on the table in front of him every night, trying to hide from him how much of a pleasure it was to have someone other than herself to cook for again. He was meek and apologetic, thankful for every scrap of kindness … but he wasn’t Boyd. She hadn’t seen a flash of those white teeth in that wolfish smile of his since he’d shown up at her door. He hadn’t launched into some long tirade full of big words and bigger ideas. He sat quietly, sometimes he read a book, but mostly he kept to himself in his room when he wasn’t working.

So she had no business thinking about him what she was thinking, Ava told herself sternly. God knew she understood the need to make yourself over, to become something new. She needed to do it herself, to stop thinking about Bowman, about Raylan Givens, and see who she was without some man in her life … but in the midst of trying to believe in his change would come memories of all the times Boyd had gotten her alone and backed her up against the wall and tried to make time with her, even if she was his brother’s wife. All the racist rants, all the religious nonsense, all the brandishing of guns with that same smile, like it was nothing to hold a weapon on a woman. How was it possible a man could change that much? It had to be an act, she would think every night, rigid under the blankets, hand sticking out from under them near where the knife lay, holding her breath every time he moved.

And then she would wake up, and there he would be at the breakfast table, coffee already made, hers poured for her in a fresh cup, all picture-perfect polite, looking still like a beaten dog, and she would be mad at herself and she would treat him better to make up for her night-time distrust.

“Don’t you go blowin’ yourself up today,” she’d say, hoping to make him smile, thinking that would make him seem more like himself. Thinking it would tell her whether he was really changed, that she would see in his smile whether he was still the wolf he used to be.

“I’ll surely try not to, ma’am,” he would say, ducking his head and refusing to meet her eyes, and she wouldn’t know what to think in the daylight any more than she had during the night.

During the day, when he was gone to work, it wasn’t so bad. Ava had her chores, her gardening, and she was trying to figure out what kind of a job she could get. By the time Boyd came home, she’d have almost forgotten about him. But then she’d look at him again, filthy from the mines, she’d listen to him going upstairs and hear the water running down the drains, carrying all that coal dust through the pipes and out of the house, and wonder all over again.


	11. Miner

Boyd squinted in the sun as the cart rolled out of the mine, lifting his hands toward the light as much in praise at having once more conquered the day’s work and emerged still breathing as a block for the light on his sensitive eyes.

He got to his feet, his vision slowly adjusting. In the usual rush of men around the entrance of the mine, he saw one with a quality of stillness that immediately had the hackles rising on the back of his neck. It had only been a matter of time, he knew, until Raylan Givens found him. Not that he had been trying to hide. His name was on the employment roster; a man of Raylan’s excellent instincts would have had little trouble determining where a Crowder would go if drugs and prison were not part of the package. Besides, they had worked the mines together, he and Raylan, once when they were young and fresh and unspoiled.

“Step out of the hole to find Raylan Givens waitin’ for me,” he said. “For a second I thought I was nineteen again.” He walked past Raylan to put his gear away in his locker.

Behind him came Raylan’s slow drawl. “Yeah, I was just thinkin’, last time I was down a dog-hole mine, was Myrtle Creek. You and me, runnin’ for our lives.” He laughed, leaning up against the chain link with his hands in his pockets. 

You had to hand it to Raylan, he looked at home pretty much anywhere he was. Boyd had to wonder if he’d looked as much at home in Miami, or if there was something about being home in Kentucky that eased his soul. 

“I tell ya,” Raylan continued, “I’m not afraid o’ heights, snakes, or red-headed women, but … I am afraid o’ that.” He pointed toward the mine. 

There was an implied compliment there, that Boyd had gone back to work Raylan could not have done any longer. “Yeah, well, not a lot of legal employment in Harlan County. Least, not for a man of my skill set.” He approached Raylan more closely, his hands on the metal links of the fence between them. “Besides, wasn’t it you who said I liked to get money and blow shit up?”

“Buy you a drink?” Raylan asked.

Boyd laughed. “Well, when a Deputy United States Marshal offers to buy you a drink, in a dry county, a cautious man might turn him down.”

“Well, you could always claim entrapment, but I take your point. What if I said ‘let’s drive to a puddle, and I’ll buy you a drink’,” Raylan suggested. 

It was odd to Boyd to be walking along next to his old friend just like … old friends. Of course, now they were on the same side of the law, so there was nothing to keep them from being plain and simple old friends. Except that Raylan wanted something, because there was always something up Raylan’s sleeve.

“Well, I’d say Cumberland’s the closest,” Boyd said, trying to sort through the angles and figure out what he had that Raylan Givens wanted.

“Cumberland it is,” Raylan said. He had that look in his eye that said he was trying to work his way around Boyd somehow, and Boyd found, somewhat to his surprise, that he relished the attempt. In the car on the way over, he was not-so-subtly pumping Boyd for information. “So … nothing else to do with your time but go down the hole, that it?”

“That’s about the size of it, Raylan,” Boyd said cheerfully.

“Couldn’t have gone to peddlin’ brushes?”

“Why, I never thought of that. There much of a market for brushes these days?”

“Some, I imagine, for an enterprising young salesman.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

Raylan glanced at him, one eyebrow up. “I’ve never heard you refer to talking as work before.”

“Sometimes, Raylan, a man’s got to stay quiet and let the rumble of the dynamite do his talkin’ for him.”

“Not so long ago, that might have sounded like a threat.”

“Only to you.”

Raylan was silent for a moment, navigating the car around a curve. “Maybe so.”

They reached the bar and ordered drinks, the liquid refreshing and revitalizing as it slid down Boyd’s throat. “You want to tell me what this is all about now, Raylan?”

“Thought you might want to know what happened to the girl.”

“I take it she didn’t die, since your hat has remained white. You are still the good guy who saves the day, after all.”

Raylan ignored the sally. “She did not die. And my old boss in Miami made a deal. We shouldn’t be seeing her or any of her compatriots up here again.”

“Well, isn’t that a relief.” Boyd finished his drink, thumping the glass back on the bar and calling for another.

“Just so we’re clear,” Raylan said, “genie don’t go back in the bottle twice. Anything happens to the niece, Geo goes scorched earth—“

Boyd hadn’t given any of that a moment’s thought in quite some time. “That what you wanted?” he asked. “Make sure I wasn’t gonna throw any gasoline on the Cuban fire?”

“Life don’t hand out too many second chances, Boyd. I just hope you take advantage o’ yours.” 

“Geo and his niece got nothin’ to fear from me ‘n’ my family, ‘cause my outlaw ways are behind me.”

“Just you sayin’ that scares the shit outta me,” Raylan snapped before answering his insistently beeping phone. “Hold on a second.”

“God’s honest truth,” Boyd murmured into his glass.

“The more you say it, the less I believe it.”

Boyd turned to look at his friend, admiring how Raylan always wanted to believe that he was using his capabilities to the utmost. But those days were gone. He was a Kentucky coal miner now, the way he had always been intended to be. “Believe it or not, Raylan, all I want is to do my job and to be left alone. I hope that’s not too much to ask.”

“Okay.” Raylan proceeded to take the call, from someone named Art, who turned out to be his boss.

Raylan tossed some money on the bar and reached up to adjust his hat.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t transferred you, all the trouble you’ve drawn,” Boyd remarked to his friend.

Raylan paused with his hat still in his hand, looking at Boyd with surprise and a little hint of hurt, before settling it back on his head. “Oh, you think I draw it?”

“Oh, you think you don’t,” Boyd responded, not making it a question. Raylan saw himself as the good guy, all right, but he was the good guy from a time when the lines were a lot more blurry than they were popularly believed to be today.

They looked at each other, Raylan clearly wanting to argue, but whatever his next stop was, it seemed pressing. “I gotta go. We’re gonna continue this conversation another time.”

As his friend pushed the door open, Boyd said clearly after him, “There’s nothin’ to continue because you’ll never believe me.”

Raylan had no response to that, and Boyd was left, as he had requested, alone. He called for another drink to celebrate.


	12. Memory

Ava could hear the thumping and scuffling as Boyd came up the stairs, his footsteps unsteady, his hands bumping against the walls to keep from falling, and she tensed. How many times had she heard that same pattern of sounds when Bowman came home drunk and bent on trouble? Too often. She hated hearing them again, and cursed herself for letting Boyd think of this as his home.

As his footsteps neared her door, she reached for the knife she kept under the mattress, but he didn’t stop. Didn’t even pause. Instead he made his way to the bathroom.

She lay there relieved, letting the memories of Bowman drain away. Boyd was nothing like Bowman—at least, not anymore. He was bruised, beaten, a shell of who he had once been. She thought of him almost as a child, unable to take care of himself. Why else would he have come to her, of all people? Thinking that, she threw the covers off and reached for her bathrobe before she could think better of it. She might hate herself in the morning for showing him kindness, letting him in any further than he already was, but he was a guest in her home, and, as such, her responsibility.

The bathroom door swung open and she could see his face in the mirror, nose bloodied, eyes weary. This was nothing like Bowman, who would come home from his drunken bar fights fired up, ablaze with his own manhood. Boyd seemed ashamed of whatever he had been doing, his eyes dropping almost as soon as they had met hers in the glass.

“How did that happen?” she asked him.

Boyd sighed, his eyes closing, as he turned away from the mirror. “Honestly, Ava, I don’t have any idea.” He stared at her as if somehow the answers to the questions that tormented him might come from her.

But she didn’t have his answers. She’d never had them. She didn’t even have her own. All she knew was that here was a wounded animal at her door, and she’d take care of him like she would have any wounded animal. She hooked her thumb toward the bedroom. “Go take a seat. Go on.”

He hesitated, then moved unsteadily past her. Ava flinched a little as he went by, stepping back just in case he tried something, but he walked right past her, his eyes half-closed, feeling for the doorknob to hold himself steady. He sank onto a bench at the foot of the bed while Ava rummaged in the bathroom for supplies, carrying them to him.

She took his chin in her hand, looking his wound over. She had doctored many a worse injury than that when Bowman had come home, and with a far less compliant patient. But … not anymore. She wasn’t Boyd’s wife, or his mother, or his sister. He didn’t have to be her problem. Not this way. “Take this.” She put the bottle of alcohol and box of gauze pads into his hands. “Go on. Clean yourself up. We’ll pretend like this never happened.”

Boyd looked up at her, his damaged face set and saddened, as if he was ready to weep. He seemed so lost that her heart was touched, and she fought against the pity that surged through her. It didn’t do to pity a Crowder, she reminded herself. It was only playing with fire. And she couldn’t have him coming home like this again. Too many bad memories lay in the smell of the booze and blood mingling on him.

“It happens again, though, and I will put you back in whatever gutter you just pulled yourself out of.”

To Boyd’s credit, he didn’t bother to argue or justify himself. He just nodded, as if he was too tired to do more, and Ava left him there, marching straight out of the bedroom. She closed the door of her own room behind her and leaned against it, holding it closed with the weight of her body, tears seeping out from under her closed eyelids as she stood there locked helplessly in the memory of other nights.


	13. Dewey

Boyd sat hunched over his glass, savoring every sip. It was the only real pleasure he allowed himself, this quiet drink at the end of his shift, and so he was discomposed when a familiar voice disrupted his solitude, shouting for bourbon.

Dewey Crowe took the seat next to Boyd’s, doing a double-take when he recognized his drinking companion. “Surprised to see you in here. Thought you’d given up these poisons.”

“Well, I had. But many things have changed since last we spoke.” Boyd smiled at the glass, feeling the burn of the liquor at the back of his throat.

“You mean, when you pointed your gun at me.”

As if he was sitting inside someone else’s head, Boyd noticed with some interest that talking about his men, and their death, was no longer painful. It was in the past, and had no connection with his current reality. “Well, the irony in that, is that without me pointin’ my gun at you, you wouldn’t be alive today.”

When the bartender came for the payment, Dewey spread a handful of change on the bar, poking around at it until he had selected enough. Clearly Dewey had not stumbled upon a profitable line of work. Not a surprise, given his lack of intellect. Even less of a surprise, he next claimed to "have something lined up". How Boyd remembered those days, always scheming on the next plan, always scrambling to line up the next deal. He was well shut of that life now, he thought, looking at the glass of whiskey purchased with honest-earned coin. Well shut of it.

“Whatever puts a smile on your face, Dewey Crowe,” he murmured, taking a careful sip.

Dewey looked up at him. “You know, Boyd, for a guy who’s supposedly changed, you sound an awful lot like you always did.” And then he was gone, leaving Boyd to consider that. He was who he was, he supposed. Hard to change one’s spots entirely. But he was content with what he had now—a job, a drink, a bed to fall into in a safe place.

It was harder to remember his blessings the next day, as he emerged from the hole, blinking in the sun and filthy from the night’s work, some young buck trying to make his points by harassing the famous Boyd Crowder leaning over his shoulder. Boyd ignored him, as he had ignored others who had tried to get a rise out of him. He was no longer the man they thought he was—he had no need to give them the satisfaction of his anger.

The young buck was chased off by another man, slightly older but still lacking the weight of years that seemed to pull heavily on Boyd these days. This one was star-struck, and his hero worship was harder to shake off, in part because Boyd had little respect for someone who would think of him as some variety of hero.

He managed to disentangle himself from both of them, stopping for his careful drink before heading home to Ava’s. 

Something was new, though. Maybe it was the weather, a clear, sunny day, maybe it was something in him beginning to wake up. Whatever it was, he found himself stopping to rest on the porch, enjoying the sunshine, rather than dragging himself straight to bed. 

And regretted it shortly thereafter, as a car driven by a mighty agitated Dewey Crowe pulled up. Boyd got up from the loveseat on the porch, leaning against the upright. 

“Goddamn it, don’t play with me,” Dewey spat after Boyd’s friendly, if sarcastic, greeting. “I know it was you.”

“What was me?”

Dewey was hopping mad, not making even as much sense as usual, but the gist of his upset seemed to be that he thought Boyd had convinced some of their old running buddies to get in the middle of whatever Dewey had been so pleased to have lined up. For a moment, Boyd almost wished he had.

Then Ava came out, the screen door banging shut behind her, drawn by Dewey’s voice, and Boyd was glad he was still playing it straight, still deserving of her trust. 

She glared at Dewey, glared at Boyd, and said to Boyd, “You’ve got two minutes to get him out of here,” before going back in the house.

Boyd went down the steps, squaring up to Dewey, denying any involvement in the malfeasance that had him so upset.

“Why should I believe that?” Dewey demanded, and Boyd, for once in his life, had no answer. Dewey seemed struck more by the lack of response than he would have been by Boyd’s natural glibness. “Well, all right. If you didn’t have a hand in it, then I assume you won’t mind if I make a play for it myself.”

“What are you thinkin’?” Boyd asked, the question tripping so naturally off his tongue. He had been good at this kind of thing once. He thought ahead, anticipating Dewey’s ham-handed plan, trying to talk him out of it. 

“Spoken like a man protecting his associates,” Dewey snapped, turning back to his car.

Boyd followed him. “Spoken like a man who doesn’t want to see you get killed.” Leaning over Dewey, he tried to explain what would happen if Dewey went after the stolen pills, but Dewey was having none of it. He drove off, determined to get in trouble, and Boyd looked after him, trying to determine if he was responsible if he didn’t try to stop the disaster that was about to occur. 

Then he looked up and saw Ava in the doorway, watched her arms cross over her chest as she weighed him in the balance and found him wanting, and he cursed the Dewey Crowes of this world for not letting him ease into a plain and simple retirement the way he had wanted to. How could a man truly change if his past wouldn't leave him alone?


	14. Foolishness

Ava watched Boyd drive off, disgusted with him, disgusted with herself. Of course Boyd was back to his old tricks, hanging around with Dewey Crowe, getting involved in whatever mess Dewey was bound to screw up this time. The respectful man who went to work and came home, quietly doing a real job, had never been going to last. She had been a fool to believe he would. Now she’d have to kick him out sooner or later. Probably sooner, before he got in too deep into whatever this was, and it was already too late because deep down she knew she didn’t want to have to kick him out. 

It was comforting to have him in the house, to know there was someone there if she needed a hand, to have someone to talk to and someone to cook for, even if that someone was her former husband’s brother.

What an idiot she’d been to let him in in the first place, she thought, going to the refrigerator for a cool drink. She didn’t get it, though, because the next knock at her door was that of another man she’d been an idiot to let in in the first place.

Raylan Givens. At least he had the grace to look like he knew he wasn’t welcome on her porch. But he was on her porch anyway, asking for a minute of her time. Not because of her, no. Because of Boyd. Because Boyd and Raylan were more of a pair than she and Raylan had ever been.

She left the screen door firmly shut between them. “What can I do for you, Raylan?”

He was upfront about it, that he was here for Boyd. She pointed out the absence of Boyd’s truck, and Raylan pretended he didn’t know damn well Boyd wasn’t here. She’d had about enough of charming men who smiled at you while they tried to get what they wanted out of you.

Ava decided she wanted more than this from Raylan. She pushed the screen door open and stepped out, practically in his arms when he didn’t step back. “Tell the truth. You come to my door to talk to Boyd, or to ask me why he’s livin’ in my house?”

Raylan still didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off her. She wished she thought he cared. “I’m here on business, Ava,” he said softly.

“Raylan, Bowman didn’t leave me with much more than shitty memories and a balloon payment on a mortgage that I can’t afford. Now, I work at the beauty parlor in Corkum, but it ain’t hardly enough.” She tugged on his tie, enjoying being this close to him even though she couldn’t have him. Truth to tell, enjoying the response she could feel in his body, too, knowing he wanted her but wouldn’t let himself have her. That wasn’t hardly enough, either, but it was better than nothing. “Boyd, he helps out. I know it’s odd,” she admitted. Then she added the even odder part. “But do you realize he’s the only kin I have left?” Other than Jeremiah, but Lord only knew where her uncle’d got himself off to these days.

“Sounds … mutually beneficial,” Raylan agreed. “Has he left for work?”

“We have an arrangement!” Ava insisted, not wanting to talk about Boyd’s current whereabouts. She wanted Raylan’s eyes on her, his attention on her, for reasons having as much to do with Boyd’s safety from the law as her own needs. The man was living in her house, he was her responsibility. She’d cover for him until she had to kick him out, as best she could. She took her cigarettes and walked across the sun-warmed boards of the porch. “No liquor in the house—I was drinkin’ way too much, maybe you noticed,” she added, giving Raylan an arch glance. He had liked her liquored up. He’d liked being liquored up. 

But he wasn’t paying her any mind, instead peering through the screen door into the house.

“And, um, no trouble with the law,” Ava continued. “He does anything I find the least bit offensive, I throw him out. It’s really pretty simple.” She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it.

“Ava. While I’m here. I’m lookin’ into the possibility that he had a hand in hijacking an oxy bus. Shootin’ a guard.”

Oxy. Well, didn’t that just take the case. Just the kind of idiocy Dewey Crowe would be messing around with—just the kind of thing Boyd had sworn he was over and done with.

“There are these pill mills in Florida,” Raylan went on, “don’t computerize records. Dixie Mafia’s been hirin’ busloads of folks to …”

“I know what an oxy bus is, I read the papers,” Ava broke in, unimpressed by how his accent went back to what it had been growing up anytime he wanted to seem like home folks again. “You think Boyd hijacked one?”

“Wouldn’t be standin’ here otherwise.”

Boyd Crowder was gonna get an earful next time Ava saw him, that was for sure. She sank down on the loveseat. “Guess that explains Dewey bein’ here.”

“Dewey Crowe? He was here.”

“Mm-hm. He and Boyd were arguin’ about somethin’. I didn’t pay much attention to what. Guess maybe I should have.” She hadn’t wanted to, and that was her own damned foolishness again. When was she ever going to learn?

Raylan knew he’d gotten under her skin. He took a seat next to her, just close enough. “Ava.”

“Mmhm.”

“Anything you could tell me, would be helpful.”

She debated. But if Boyd was back at his old ways, the best thing she could do for herself was to set Raylan on his trail. With any luck, they’d take care of each other and she’d be well rid of both of them. “Boyd already left for his night shift. But he doesn’t go straight to the mine. He stops at Audrey’s first. I’m sure you know where that is. You probably lost your virginity there.” Audrey’s was an institution, after all, although Ava would have bet good money that Boyd wasn’t taking advantage of the more colorful parts of the bar. Just the whiskey, just the fortification to get him through the shift. Going down the mine was a shitty job. Ava was impressed by the men who did it, and saddened for them, too. It didn’t really surprise her if Boyd was looking elsewhere. He had too much gumption to waste his life in a hole in the ground.

She got up, signaling to Raylan that he’d had all he was going to get from her. “Good luck.”


	15. Shades

When Boyd looked up from his single glass of carefully savored whiskey and saw Raylan Givens walking toward him, it occurred to him that perhaps he ought to find himself a new watering hole. This one was beginning to feel a mite crowded by the ghosts of his former selves, and the baggage said spirits were dragging along with them.

Raylan had his “aw, shucks” smirk on him. It must be habitual, or else he wouldn’t have bothered wearing it in Boyd’s presence. Boyd had known Raylan too long to let himself be fooled by that down-home manner. 

“Back in Audrey’s,” Raylan marveled as he took the empty seat. There was some genuine wonder there—Audrey’s was a magic land of transformation for most young men of their generation—but there was also an attempt to paint himself as Boyd’s equal, by means of their shared past, and Boyd wanted no part of it.

He closed his eyes and held the cool glass against his forehead as Raylan leaned over toward him and asked, “Is it just me, or has the presence of a US marshal made these folks uneasy?”

Another time, Boyd would have enjoyed a verbal fencing match with his old friend, would have taken pleasure in matching wits and witticisms. But today he had a headache, and he did not look forward to going down the hole, and he just wanted to be left alone to have his drink in peace. “Maybe it’s just your hat,” he suggested, an edge in his voice. As Raylan took the hat off, pretending to take Boyd’s comment seriously, Boyd continued, “I don’t suppose your bein’ here is a … coincidence.”

“Hey, where’s Dewey?” Raylan asked, as if it had just occurred to him. “Is he here?” He looked all around, every movement just a bit too broad for Boyd’s liking.

“Why would I know where Dewey is?” Boyd kept his voice even and his face clear, refusing to play along with Raylan’s theatrics.

“Well, I heard you guys had been hanging out again.”

“Ava told you that.” It was foolish, but Boyd felt stung by the betrayal. It wasn’t one, of course—Ava had the right to tell Raylan whatever she wanted, and surely the presence of Dewey Crowe at her house would have angered her enough to tell Raylan all sorts of things, actual and conjectured—but Boyd felt the pain of it anyway.

“Mm,” Raylan confirmed. “I gotta admit, took me by surprise, you and her shackin’ up.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“She told me if you looked at her funny, she’d kick you out.”

“Well, maybe it is what you think.” Tired of the game, he added, “Your reason for bein’ here would be?”

“Is to ask you if, um, you had anything to do with that oxy bus gettin’ jacked on Glen Holler Road?”

Boyd chuckled, putting the glass down. If only he was the mastermind everyone seemed to think he was. He had to admit, it sounded a lot nicer than being just another man in a hole, steadily blackening in both face and lung from the coal. “Now, why, in the context of our last conversation, would you come here and ask me that? I thought I made myself fairly clear about my intentions.”

“Simple question. Yes or no.”

“True; but the real question is whether or not you would believe my answer.”

“Well … give it a shot. We’ll see.”

Boyd couldn’t help laughing. All the things they had seen coming up, the two of them, and somehow Raylan had still boiled the world down to this black and white affair where people were either good or bad, and they stayed the way they started. He wondered how Raylan squared himself in that picture, Raylan who was more shades of gray than anyone Boyd had ever known … except, possibly, himself. He was still grinning as he turned to his old friend and gave him the God’s honest truth, certain that Raylan wouldn’t believe a word. “No, Raylan, I had nothing to do with that bus bein’ robbed.”

“Okay.” And in Raylan’s mind, it was clear, that was that. Boyd had answered, Raylan had pretended to take the answer at face value. Picking up his hat, Raylan got to his feet, but not without a parting shot, as he leaned over Boyd’s table, and, all innocence, asked, “I don’t suppose you know who did?”

“If I did know, would I be obligated to share it with you?”

“Well, that’s up to you. How much blood do you want on your hands? How much did you enjoy prison?”

With which parting shot, Raylan was on his way, leaving Boyd steaming and saddened and at a loss to determine exactly who he was and who he wanted to be.

He was still sitting there, contemplating the emptiness of life and the darkness of the mine when Dewey Crowe made his appearance, flush with cash and euphoric at his success. Naturally, Dewey couldn’t just swagger off to a trailer with Ellen May and a friend. No, of course, he had to share his good news with Boyd, completely oblivious to how little Boyd cared to be involved.

Boyd ignored the shit-eating grin as long as he could, until Dewey demanded, “Don’t you want to hear what happened?”

“Not particularly.”

Ignoring Boyd’s lack of enthusiasm, Dewey … well, he crowed, no two ways about it. “It was a thing of beauty! They never even saw it comin’. And you’re never gonna believe who I told ‘em I was. Oh … Raylan Givens.”

Dewey dissolved into giggles at his own cleverness, while Boyd winced inwardly at the stupidity of this man. How Dewey was still drawing breath as a free man was mystifying.

Boyd refused the bourbon Dewey offered him, putting his money down and rising from the table. “I gotta go to work.”

“What’s got you so jammed up?” Dewey demanded.

“Know what, Dewey? If you had any smarts in that head of yours, you would get in your car right now and start drivin’. And you wouldn’t stop until you saw the Everglades.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”

“I know that if you stay here, you’re not long for this earth, son.”

Dewey was taken aback … but only for a moment. Then his bravado reasserted himself, and he stood up, facing Boyd down. “You know what I think? I think that you’re just mad because I had the stones to do this, and you didn’t.”

“You can think what you want. Just do it from your car.”

“I will leave here when I’m good and ready and not you or no one else gonna tell me any different.”

Boyd looked steadily at Dewey, wishing he could impress on him the deadly seriousness of what he had gotten himself into. But he couldn’t. Dewey wouldn’t accept it from him, or from anyone. “You chose your path,” he said at last. “Good luck to you, son.”

As he left the bar, he took out his phone, dialing the number he knew by heart—no need for Raylan to keep giving out his card. When Raylan answered, Boyd asked him the question that was weighing so heavily on his mind these past few days. “I was wonderin’ if, back when we were diggin’ coal together, that you had an inkling of the man that I might someday become.”

“You mean, just forty and still single?”

“Well, I never thought that I would make a phone call like this, Raylan.” This was the man he had chosen to be, Boyd told himself. Straight, honest, working man. That was who he wanted to be. Someone Ava could trust. Someone no one had to die for. 

“If it’s about Dewey, don’t worry about it. I already know.”

“Well, he’s at Audrey’s, handin’ out oxycontin like he’s a pharmaceutical rep.” 

“That, I didn’t know … although I should’ve guessed. You gonna stay there and wait for me?”

“No, Raylan, I have to go to work. I’ll have to let you handle your affairs on your own.”

“Generous of you.”

Boyd hung up the call and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the window of the truck. Was this really the man he chose to be, someone who called the authorities, who called Raylan Givens? He didn’t know anymore. He only knew that it had been a long time since he dreaded in the darkness of the mine, trapped with his thoughts, the way he dreaded it tonight.


	16. Men

Ava hadn’t meant to wait up in case Boyd came back, exactly, but she found it hard to sleep not knowing what he was up to. Had he gone to work? Was he down the mine like he should be? Or was he off with Dewey Crowe, getting involved in God only knew what? She hoped it was the first one, but was so afraid to trust him. Trusting the Crowder men had never given her anything but trouble. Regardless, it was peaceful sitting out here in the dark.

It was only a little bit of a surprise when Raylan Givens pulled up in front of the house, in his shiny black marshal’s car. Come to tell her about Boyd, to crow about how far down the path of no return Boyd had gone, she was sure.

She didn't move as he got out of his car. “Twice in one day—I am a lucky girl.”

He chuckled, looking around him as he came up onto the porch. 

“Assuming you’re still looking for Boyd?” She hoped he’d found him by now. Not having found him meant … meant she’d have to kick Boyd out, and she found herself surprisingly reluctant to do so.

“No, I found him.”

Well, that couldn’t be good. “He’s gone to jail?”

“I assume he’s down the mine, workin’ his shift, as per usual.”

Ava was relieved, although she tried to hide it. She didn’t need Raylan getting any ideas. “So he didn’t rob that bus after all, huh?”

“Guess not.”

“You come here just to tell me that?”

“Well, considering your arrangement, I wouldn’t want you to throw him out ‘cause of something I said.” 

“Very thoughtful of you.” There was more coming, though, and it came almost before she got her words out.

“I want you to throw him out ‘cause he’s Boyd Crowder.”

Ava nodded, having expected as much. “Really.”

“Mmhm. I understand, Ava, he says he wants to change, and I might buy that he wants to.”

“But you don’t think he will.”

“Believin’ that kind of shit could get me killed, and I think the same goes for you.”

He hadn’t seen the Boyd she’d seen, Ava told herself, conveniently forgetting she’d had many of the same thoughts over and over again since Boyd had come to stay with her. She stayed quiet, not giving Raylan the satisfaction of a response.

“You tryin’ to get back at me? Because if that’s the case, there’s other ways to do it than movin’ Boyd in.”

She couldn’t help laughing. Men. They were all the same, always thinkin’ they were the best thing that’d ever happened to a woman. “Whoa,” she said, getting up. “This isn’t about you. And it is mighty arrogant of you to think otherwise.” What it had been at the beginning, what she had half-hoped Raylan would do when he found out Boyd was living with her, was none of Raylan’s business anyway.

“Well, then, why? Why invite even the possibility of the trouble he brings into your home?”

“I told you.”

“Oh, that’s right. You need to pay your rent, and he’s your kin. Well, you can call me arrogant if you want, but I don’t buy that shit.”

He was infuriating. She had forgotten how infuriating. And she had forgotten how much more infuriating he was when he was right. “Then why?”

“I don’t know, Ava.”

“No, you tell me, o wise one, why? Who cheated on me with his ex, who’s married.”

She’d hit a nerve that time, she could see it in the sudden tensing of his jaw. “Ava.”

“Would you like to come inside and talk about this?”

He smiled, slow, getting the drift of what she was suggesting, tempted, at least a little bit, which she was glad to see. Not that she wanted him anymore, not really, but it was always better to know they still wanted you. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said at last.

“Then go. You are choosin’ not to be a part of my life, so you don’t get a say in how I live it. And Boyd, he’s stayin’ here.” Although she’d be giving him a talking-to he wouldn’t soon forget. But she was damned if Raylan Givens was going to have his pie and eat his cake, too. 

He looked at her, deciding whether it was worth continuing to argue, and decided against it. “Okay.”

“Okay.” As he went down the steps to his car, she called after him, “And I’d appreciate the next time a bus gets robbed in Harlan, that you wouldn’t come knockin’ on this door.”

Raylan grinned, as if that was a good joke, which to him it probably was, and got into his car. Ava went in the house and let the screen door slam behind her, angry at him and at Boyd and at Bowman and men in general for not letting a woman enjoy a set-out on the porch in peace and quiet.


	17. Anger

Another shift gone by. Another night down the hole, another morning coming out into the sunshine again. This was his life; Crowder men had been living it for generations … at least, until they’d gotten smart and realized there were other ways to live. But how smart was it to be a parasite, to live off other men’s ruin, to constantly be making shaky deals and waiting for them to fall through?

Those were the questions he looked for in the amber liquid as he raised his glass up in front of his face. That the answers didn’t lurk in those smooth, smoky depths didn’t much bother him, because at least the alcohol quieted the questions for a time, long enough so he could sleep, anyway.

But sleep would be a long time coming, he could tell, when the door banged open and the young man from the mine walked in, followed by two of his compatriots. Yes, it was for certain that Boyd was going to need to find somewhere else to drink, somewhere that he might be left alone for a change.

“What does a man have to do to get a quiet drink in these parts?” he murmured to himself, listening to the clump of the other fellow’s boots on the wooden floor. 

“Well, what do you know. Boyd Crowder.” The kid took the seat next to him without so much as a by-your-leave. “Fancy that.”

“I’m sorry … What’s your name?”

“Kyle.”

“I thought I stated it rather politely the other day: I prefer to drink alone.” He glanced down at the glass the waitress had just left on the bar.

“Well, you did. You did. And I—I respect that.” The kid seemed nervous. Boyd was glad he seemed nervous, but would have been more glad had he taken himself off rather than settled more firmly into the chair. “I do. But, uh—Well, truth is, I, I came here to offer you somethin’.”

Boyd held still, not wanting to hear the offer. But he wanted to hear it, too. It was flattering to be chased down, to be respected for his skills at something beyond blowing shit up at the bottom of a hole.

“I should’ve come clean, at the mine,” Kyle went on. “I know who y’are, Boyd Crowder. And I’m a great admirer of all that you’ve done. I mean, Crowder’s Commandos, shit, brother.” He laughed. “Well, you’re a local legend.”

A lesser man might have eaten all this up, Boyd thought, feeling the temptation to glow a little in the praise even as he pushed it away as belonging to a man from another life. 

“Poppin’ off them Jews like you was in a video game.”

Any temptation to glow was officially gone. Boyd put the glass down. “I never killed any Jews, Kyle. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met a Jew in my life.”

“All I’m sayin’ is that I understand who you are. You have a vision, and I have a vision. You and me, we’s the same.”

Boyd leaned back and took the money out of his jacket to pay for his drink. That last quarter inch lay, smooth and cool, in the bottom of the glass, but he wanted out of this conversation before he got angry, and he could feel the anger beginning to churn inside him. Couldn’t this boy read the signals and see that Boyd was not that man any longer?

He leaned over, letting a carefully chosen amount of that rising anger show. “You don’t know anything about me. Or why I have done the things that I have done in my life.”

“Well, now, hold on,” Kyle said, getting to his feet. “Ain’t no reason to get riled up.” 

Behind Kyle, Boyd could see the other two miners also on their feet. Part of him was weary, just wanting to go home and go to bed, but part of him … well, it had been a long time since he’d been in a fight, and he felt like he just might have some things to work out that fisticuffs might resolve quite nicely.

“I killed people, too,” Kyle told him as they stood there facing off against one another. “And I lost friends like you did out in the woods.”

The image of his men hanging blinded Boyd for a moment. He didn’t want to remember that day.

“But some sacrifices are necessary, sometimes.” Kyle had moved closer, his eyes lit with an unholy passion. “People are disposable.” He nodded, as though Boyd had agreed, when in fact Boyd was merely trying to hold on to his temper long enough not to beat the shit out of him. “Men like you and me, we understand that.”

How low must Boyd have been once that this boy, this arrogant boy who thought he knew things, saw some kinship between them? It was sickening. He pushed past him and headed for the door, wanting nothing more than to leave this whole sorry mess behind him as he had left behind the man he used to be.

But it was not to be, as Kyle came chasing after him. “Come on, there ain’t no need to run off. Wait a second, will ya? I want to talk to you about somethin’.”

Boyd reached his truck, pulling open the driver’s side door. He climbed inside, slamming the door behind him and reaching to turn the key even as Kyle’s face appeared in the window, still demanding that Boyd wait a second.

He had always been a patient man, but even his patience wore thin eventually. He stared out the windshield, holding on to his temper the way he held the steering wheel. And then Kyle made the mistake of reaching into the window for the key, trying to force Boyd to stop and listen to what he had to say.

It was too much. The man he was and the man he used to be came together as one as he wrapped an arm around Kyle’s neck, holding him half in and half out the window, and hit the gas, the truck reversing out of its spot.

Even as Boyd hit the brakes and changed gears, Kyle’s friends were running down the stairs, looking alarmed for the first time. Apparently it had never occurred to them that Boyd would not take kindly to being pestered. 

It was occurring to Kyle now, though, as Boyd slammed the truck into drive and took off down the road, still holding Kyle’s head firmly so that he had no choice but to shuffle his feet along with the truck’s momentum, his friends running after the truck impotently.

“Let’s have a little conference time, one-on-one, me and you, what do you say?”

Kyle’s easy charm, which must have won him entry into any number of foolish young ladies’ beds, had deserted him as he tried to keep up with the truck and plead with Boyd and adjust to his new reality all at once.

“You want to talk about my past, killed people, blew shit up, that what you want to talk about? Or you want to talk about God? And faith! Hope! Demolition, you want to talk about that?”

“Jesus Christ!” Kyle shrieked.

“Jesus Christ? We can talk about him, Kyle. You want to meet Him? Huh? You want to meet your Maker, Kyle, because I‘ll be right behind you. How ‘bout we do this on three. One. Two.” He screamed “Three!” in Kyle’s ear just as Kyle shouted, “Stop the car!”

And then he let go, giving Kyle’s head a shove, watching in the side mirror as Kyle bounced across the road and into the dirt along the side. Boyd screamed and screamed, letting out all the pain and the anguish, the built-up tension of the months trying to be so careful, trying to be the man he wanted to be, beating the steering wheel as he let it all out. 

Then he paused in the middle of the road, watching the still figure lying under the yellow caution sign, waiting to see if he was still the new Boyd Crowder or if he had to go back to being the old one. He hadn’t wanted to let this boy get under his skin, to make the choice to change what he was without having made the choice, by letting his anger get the best of him, and he would hate to have to be the old Boyd Crowder just because he’d killed a man who refused to take a polite no for an answer. If he ever was that Boyd again, he wanted it to be his own choice, to be deliberate.

At last the figure moved, getting its elbows and knees under it, and Boyd knew that Kyle would live.

He drove off, frightened by his own anger even as he breathed a sigh of relief.


	18. Control

Boyd was so tired that he nearly closed his eyes and leaned his head against the steering wheel to sleep rather than get out of the car. But movement on the porch alerted him before he could close his eyes, and he lifted his head to meet Ava’s stone-faced gaze. He sighed, knowing he didn’t have the energy for this conversation right now, and knowing as surely that she wouldn’t be put off. A distant part of his mind wondered where he would go when she threw him out of the house. No doubt Raylan had been here, and his old friend had done his best to remove the fox from the henhouse he was no longer tending.

There was no help for it. He took the keys out of the ignition and climbed out of the car. “Good morning, Ava.”

“Don’t you ‘good morning’ me. Tell me what you’ve been up to. Why was Dewey Crowe comin’ here lookin’ for you?”

“Oh, Dewey.” Boyd sighed. “He wanted to blame someone else for his own mistakes. That’s all.”

Ava appeared to accept that. “Raylan was here.”

“I thought he might have been. He tell you about Dewey at Audrey’s?”

“No, he left that part out. Mostly he told me I should kick you out because you were gonna turn on me sooner or later. Are you? Gonna turn on me?” There was a vulnerability in her eyes that Boyd wasn’t certain he’d ever seen before, and it occurred to him, maybe Ava was lonely. Maybe she was as lost as he was, looking for a direction to turn her life in.

“No, ma’am.” He spread out his hands, still marked with coal dust under the fingernails. “What you see is who I intend to be.”

“For how long? How many times does Dewey Crowe, or your daddy’s crew, or any of your old running buddies, have to come around here before you remember who you used to be?”

“Ava. I remember who I used to be.” A wave of weariness came over him, dizziness and nausea as he remembered the still figure of Kyle lying by the side of the road, alive by the grace of God, not by the restraint of Boyd Crowder. He reached for the upright to hold himself up. “I don’t have any desire to be that man again, that I can promise you.”

She came toward him, holding on to the upright as well, looking him right in the face. “Why not?”

Boyd swallowed. He hadn’t been able to put this into words for himself, and very much wished he could have had a good long rest and some distance from the events of this morning before he had to try to explain it to her. “That was … that was an angry man, Ava. Angry and hateful and filled with malice toward his fellow human beings, even though he hadn’t met most of those he held responsible for what he thought of as his ills.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“Well, then. Do you want to see that man back again?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“So what do you do with all that anger? Does it just … go away?” She asked it as though she had some anger herself. No doubt she did, Boyd thought. All those years with Bowman, his father, himself, Raylan … Life, and men, had not been particularly kind to Ava so far.

He looked her in the eye, holding her gaze with his. “No, Ava, it doesn’t. It’s not easy to swallow it. Down the hole, outside, when I think of my father, when I’m alone, when I’m with other people … It’s why I prefer to be left alone whenever I can. It’s easier to control by myself, thinking of other things, thinking of nothing.”

“The bourbon.”

“It’s not a problem, Ava. I have one drink at a time, mostly.”

“I believe you.”

He wasn’t sure if she did, but saying as much was kind of her. 

“You ever lose control of that anger?”

“Sometimes.”

They were both leaning against the upright now, their faces very close together, their voices soft. “What do you do?”

“Take a deep breath and try to do better tomorrow.”

Ava smiled. “It is tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll try to do better today.”

She stepped back, then, breaking the moment of understanding between them. “I bet a good long sleep’ll help with that.”

“I hope so.” He pushed himself off the upright. “Ava.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

She looked at him, studying him, weighing his future. “You’re welcome.” Then she hurried down the steps toward her car, probably heading in to a shift at the beauty parlor, and Boyd, feeling the weight of the world lifting off his shoulders now that she had forgiven him for whatever Raylan had accused him of being, headed inside to lose himself in the blissful dark of sleep.


	19. Company

Boyd shifted on the bed, propping the pillow up more comfortably behind him, opening the book again. It was a slow starter, or maybe it had just been too long since he had stretched his intellect.

At any rate, it was something of a relief, as well as a surprise, when a light tap came on the door.

“It’s open!” When the door swung open, Ava leaning against the doorjamb, he assumed he knew what had brought her upstairs. “Music too loud?”

“Little bit.”

Closing the book, Boyd sat up and reached out to turn the music off.

“Whatcha readin’?”

“Of Human Bondage.”

He wasn’t surprised when Ava made a face, shaking her head. “I don’t know that.”

Boyd got to his feet. She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in the doorway, appearing nervous, which made him nervous in turn. He glanced at the book, realizing he had closed it without marking his place. “I just started.”

They stared at each other, Boyd trying to figure out what she wanted.

At last Ava looked around the room, remarking, “Little stuffy in here.”

“I don’t mind.” It sounded like maybe she was working up to suggesting he find another place to live, and Boyd hoped to head her off by pretending he didn’t notice.

“It’s nicer out on the porch.” Ava tilted her head that way in an obvious suggestion that he should join her, which surprised Boyd a little. Not least of which because it was actually fairly cool out, and Ava was wearing a little off-the-shoulder T-shirt not exactly meant for the weather. He stopped himself short of considering how good she looked in it. Those were not thoughts for the new Boyd, certainly not where Ava was concerned.

But, curious and still a bit apprehensive, he pulled on his coat and followed her downstairs as she seemed to expect him to do.

Despite the chill, it was refreshing to be out. It smelled like rain was coming in, a fresh, clean scent. Tucking his hands in his pockets, Boyd sank down on the loveseat, enjoying the view and the outdoors. It was good to be alive, after all. A person needed to stop and look around and give consideration to that fact every once in a while.

Ava, bundled up in her own coat, lit a cigarette, leaning against the upright.

Politely, Boyd waited for her to get around to whatever she had brought him down here to talk about, but as she smoked, looking out at the fields across the road, he started to wonder if maybe all she had wanted was the company. 

That he had lived long enough to see Ava Crowder want his company, he marveled. “How is the work at the beauty salon going?” he asked at last, when it became clear she wasn’t about to start a conversation.

Ava glanced at him in surprise. “Okay. Can’t complain. Well, I could, but what would be the point?” She laughed a little, blowing smoke out into the cloudy day.

“I suppose. Business slow?”

“Yeah, a little.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Wigs are popular again. Startin’ to cut into business.” She turned to look at him, smiling. “Although there was this one woman yesterday, she wanted me to add curls to hers. She brought it in on a foam head, put it up in my chair like it was a real person. Can you believe that?”

“That’s somethin’.”

“She didn’t tip for shit, either,” Ava groused. “I hate doin’ wigs.”

“You know, I always wondered what I’d look like with long hair.”

Ava giggled. Out and out giggled, which a different Boyd would have found adorable. “That is a funny image, Boyd.”

“I’m serious. Thought if I had long hair, I might be the lead singer in a rock band.” He grinned, thinking back. Those had been good times, times filled with hope and possibility. Hope and possibility seemed to disappear as you got older, which might be why people were so obsessed with staying young forever. “I love music,” he told her.

“Can you sing?”

“No. No, I can’t sing. Not a lick.” He had tried, though, tried mighty hard for a while there, until his daddy had cuffed him upside the head one day and told him to stop being such a damn fool. Bo had meant well, for sure, but Boyd thought a little more time being a damn fool probably wouldn’t have hurt him any. He didn’t want to think about Bo, though, so instead, he thought about his Granny Crowder, singing as she hung laundry on the line. “My grandmother, she could sing. She would sing out in the back yard, and I’d sit and listen to her. It calmed me.”

Ava nodded, understanding. He wondered if she had any memories of family who calmed her when she was little. “Well, life is long,” she said, and he appreciated her humoring his long-ago dreams.

“Yeah.”

A truck was coming down the dirt road. Boyd tensed, hoping it would go on by. He didn’t know about Ava, but anyone who might be coming to visit him was someone he would just as soon not see right now. 

“You expecting company?” Ava asked, just as Boyd recognized the truck as belonging to Kyle. Damn.

“Ava, you best go inside.” Whatever Kyle was about to do, she didn’t need to be in the middle of, and whatever he might say, she didn’t need to hear. If she knew what he had done to Kyle, she would have him pitched out the back door quicker than she could spit, Boyd thought, and he wouldn’t blame her a bit.

“Friends o’ yours?”

“Go on in and lock the door.”

To his relief, she did as he asked, the door shutting behind her just as Kyle got out of the truck. Two of his buddies jumped out of the bed, following him up. Kyle was limping a bit, but otherwise seemed in good condition, which was mostly a relief to Boyd, although he regretted that clearly he had not made his point forcefully enough to dissuade the young man from showing up here.

“Stop right there,” he said to them. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology. What I did to you was uncalled-for. It’s just that I get confused, in my head, whenever I think about such painful things.” He hadn’t been that confused. He’d been angry, and he’d wanted to be left the hell alone, and he’d wanted for just a minute to be Boyd Crowder teaching this upstart a lesson. But Kyle didn’t need to hear any of that, and Ava most certainly didn’t. He’d have bet a month’s pay she was standing behind the closed door with her shotgun, and he felt both better and worse for the thought.

To his surprise, Kyle laughed, glancing at his friends as if to say ‘you believe this guy?’ He came toward the porch. “It’s all right, Boyd. I ain’t here for that.”

Frowning, Boyd stepped down off the porch, closing the distance. Now he was absolutely sure Ava didn’t need to hear any of this. “What are you here for?”

“I told you, I have plans. I need someone like you to make them work. What you did just makes me more sure that you’re the person I’m lookin’ for.”

“Because I half-killed you?” Boyd asked skeptically.

“Yes, sir. That’s the kind of fire I need.”

“Perhaps I have not yet made myself clear. I am not interested in helping you with your plans, and what occurred between us before was regrettable. I am not that man, and I would take it kindly if you would find someone else to assist you.”

He looked at Kyle. Kyle looked at him. Neither of them spared a glance for Kyle’s buddies. “You’re sure?”

“I am completely sure.”

“Well, then, I guess we got what we came for.” Kyle shook his head. “It’s too bad.”

“I’m certain it is,” Boyd agreed politely.

Kyle and his friends got back in the truck and drove away, leaving Boyd watching them with relief, and a certain amount of curiosity he refused to acknowledge.


	20. Promise

“Boyd Crowder.”

Ava was waiting for him as he closed the front door behind him. The shotgun rested in the crook of her elbow. He knew from painful experience how good she was with it, and he kept a wary eye on the weapon as he took a cautious step in her direction.

"You want to tell me what in the hell that was all about?"

“Do you want me to go, Ava?”

“No!” The word had come out faster than she’d wanted it to, and Ava hurried to cover it. “What I want to know is what those men were here for, and why you’re bringing trouble into my house when you promised you wouldn’t.”

Boyd winced at the reminder. He had promised that, and he had tried to live up to that promise, God knew he had. “They followed me.”

“All the way home? Really.”

“They stopped me at work, wanted the Crowder name and skills for something they have going.” He held up a hand when she was about to ask for details. “I don’t know what, I don’t want to know. I didn’t ask.”

She frowned. “You didn’t ask.”

“No, I did not. I’m done with all that. I said I was, and I am. Despite what your friend Raylan might have said,” he couldn’t resist adding spitefully. He didn’t object to Raylan looking out for Ava, not really, but the under-handed manner in which he’d done so, coming by when Boyd wasn’t here, said it was at least as much about jealousy as it was about protectiveness—two attributes Raylan Givens had in spades.

“You leave Raylan out of this,” Ava snapped. “This is about you and your trashy friends.”

Boyd took another step toward her, mindful of the shotgun. If it had lifted the slightest bit he would have stepped back. But it didn’t, and he stood in front of her, looking into her eyes. “I promise you, Ava, it was not my idea for them to come here, and I will do everything I can to keep them from returning.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

For a moment, he thought she might say something more, but she stepped back. “All right, then. Long as that’s true.” She didn’t want to admit to the relief she felt; she hadn’t wanted to kick him out, and she hadn’t wanted him to be up to his old tricks, either. It was entirely possible he was lying to her right now—he had always been good at that—but she had to trust him sometime, and this seemed like as good a time as any. She’d be keeping the shotgun handy, though, just in case those men, or Dewey Crowe, or anyone else she didn’t want in her house, came around again. 

“Thank you, Ava.” There was something soft in his eyes, a relief that matched hers, and Ava was touched by it, reminded that he really didn’t have anywhere else to go. She shouldn’t care, she told herself, but she did, at that. Like she would have cared about a stray dog. That was it.

“Supper’ll be in an hour.”

“Can I help?”

Ava smiled, shaking her head. “No, I don’t like anyone messing around my kitchen while I’m cooking.”

“All right, then. I’ll get out of your way.” 

For a moment, she thought he might say something more, but then he left the room. Only when she heard his footsteps all the way up the stairs, the door close at the top, and the music start again did she stow the shotgun away—leaving it where it would be handy if she needed it—and open the refrigerator to begin gathering ingredients.

She had always thought best when cooking, her hands going through the familiar motions while her mind worked through the problems of the day. Even as she mixed the flour and spices for the chicken, she considered what had happened today, and Boyd’s reaction to it. Oh, he had sent those men on their way right smartly, but there was something different about him these last few days, an assurance, a light, that hadn’t been there since he’d come to live with her.

Why didn’t she just go ahead and give him his walking papers? Sure as there were stars in the sky, Boyd was going to go back to his old tricks. He was a Crowder, wasn’t he? And Crowders were born to trouble. Even if they tried—and Boyd had tried, she gave him that—trouble found them one way or another. She could believe that someone working a plan out in his head would see Boyd Crowder and want to get that name, that set of nimble brains, on his side. And she could imagine how it would turn Boyd’s head to be wanted, no matter how hard he tried not to let it.

He’d given it a good try, this whole normal life thing, but he wasn’t born to it, and in the long run he would never be happy that way. Ava flipped the chicken over in the flour again, wondering if she was happy the way she was. Not even wondering, really, just being aware that she was marking time, still waiting for her life to start. What did she even want? she asked herself, dropping the breaded chicken into the hot fat. 

If only she knew.


	21. Plan

“Boyd. Boyd! Wait up.”

It was Kyle’s voice. Boyd rolled his eyes—would this boy ever quit?—but he obediently waited up, as requested. “What is it now, Kyle? Have I not explained to you my lack of interest in your master scheme?”

“You haven’t even heard the plan! Come on, just give it a listen.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because … because it’ll make you a mint of money.”

“A mint of money, hm?” Boyd sighed. These plans never came through, not even when intelligent men of vision put them together. On the other hand, he happened to have seen a letter from Ava’s bank when looking in her desk for a rubber band. If she didn’t get a whole lot of cash, and quickly, she could lose her house. Over and above the fact that her house was currently also Boyd’s refuge, he didn’t want to see her lose everything she had because his brother had been terrible with money.

As if sensing the change in Boyd’s attitude, Kyle pressed the advantage. “Just let us go somewhere quiet where we can talk. We’ll tell you the whole thing, and you can help us fine-tune it, and then if you don’t think it’ll work, we’ll—well, we’ll back off.”

Boyd highly doubted that, but he had ways of ensuring he’d be left alone if needed. Raylan Givens came to mind as a likely option. “All right. Ava’s at work, we can go back to my place. No one will disturb us.”

“Great! Great, we’ll be there.”

As he had anticipated, it was a simplistic plan … but there were elements he could work with. And far from requesting any fine-tuning on his part, Kyle seemed content to trumpet his own cleverness and to wait for what he appeared certain would be Boyd’s fulsome praise. And they wanted to do it today, immediately, which meant they didn’t want Boyd to take too much time thinking it over.

“Interesting,” Boyd said at last. 

“You’re the best, Boyd. We need you. You’ll come on board now, right, now you’re sure we know what’s what?”

The boy looked like a puppy, eager and waiting to be thrown a bone to. So Boyd did. “It’s quite the plan.” They didn’t need him as badly as they said, though, which made him wonder if there was more to his particular role here than they were admitting to. But there was the letter from the bank … Boyd sat forward. “All right. I’m in.”

“All right!” Kyle grinned in what he appeared to believe was a charming manner. His two idiot friends had remained silent through all of this, a wise move on their part, since they were hardly likely to sell the plan. “One more time. While you’re taking the packets down to the splinter shaft, we’re gonna transfer the cash to the truck.”

“Pruitt’s going to drive it down the mountain,” Boyd filled in.

Pruitt looked at him, his mouth hanging half-open. Who in their right mind would trust someone like that with all that cash? On the other hand, Boyd would be inside the mine while this was going on, which left him with little to work with.

“That’s right,” Kyle confirmed. “And Marcus and I join you in the hole. And then—“ 

Behind him, Marcus said, “Boom.”

“Drop the ceiling between us and the surface.” Kyle looked at him, waiting for the approbation.

“Now, the man who’ll be guardin’ this take, I’ve known this man for quite some time. He will not easily part with company money.”

“Who, Shelby?” Kyle stared at him, clearly not prepared for discussion on this topic. “Shit. Boyd, dude’s older than shit.”

“And yet, again, he’s a steady hand on that 44 he keeps underneath his desk.”

Kyle gave a nervous laugh, sharing a look with Pruitt, who gave a nervous laugh of his own and sat back. “You ain’t gonna have to worry about Shelby,” Kyle assured Boyd.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

Marcus was suddenly looming over him. “’Cause you’re gonna kill him.”

That was interesting. Not entirely surprising, but interesting. Boyd could think of a few ways he could turn this development to his advantage. He sat back. “Well, now, you never mentioned bloodshed. If you had brought this up earlier, I don’t know if this conversation would have gone on this long.”

The look on Kyle’s face said the burying of the relevant information had not been accidental. “You’ve killed men for far less, Boyd. Let’s keep our eye on the prize.”

“You take Shelby down in the shaft until you set up the det. Once it’s wired, you lay a shovel upside his head real hard. Cave-in’ll take care of the rest.” Marcus sounded pleased with the whole idea, as though he wished he would be the one wielding the shovel.

“See, that’s the genius of the whole thing. Everybody’ll think that he stole the money, tried to blow up the shaft behind him, but instead, premature detonation, and we was just the poor miners that got caught up in all of it.”

Boyd had carefully pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and now he gestured with it to see if any of the idiots would notice it. “Well, if this is gonna go down today, the devil lies in the details.”

“You don’t worry about the details,” Kyle snapped impatiently. “Let me worry about the details, all right? We’re countin’ on you for one thing, and one thing alone.”

“What’s that?” As if Boyd didn’t know. And someone ought to tell this impetuous young hothead that a man who let someone else look to the details was dead already and didn’t even know it. No doubt he would learn.

“Powder-man, Boyd. We need you to make sure this mountain don’t come down on us, and kill us.”

Boyd gave a small nod, which Kyle took as agreement.

He started pulling things out from the bag at his feet, taking his eyes off Boyd, who punched a button on his cell phone and laid it on the chair behind the cushion.

“Now, once you set it we’re gonna detonate remotely. All right? ATF’ll be all over this thing. We don’t need any extra det wire tippin’ ‘em off.”

The house phone rang, and the room went silent.


	22. Cool

As the phone kept ringing, Kyle and his idiots stared at Boyd with hostility, as though they had thought he had somehow turned off the house phone for the duration of their discussion. But not as though they suspected anything, which pleased him.

“Well, I should probably get that,” Boyd said mildly, getting to his feet even as Kyle rolled his eyes and sighed loudly at the interruption.

He picked up the handset and said hello as if he was speaking with someone. Behind him, Pruitt hovered in the doorway, as Boyd had suspected one of them would, so he carried on his half of the imaginary conversation quietly, unhurried, even as Marcus and Kyle whispered to each other in full earshot of the cell phone Boyd had left open on the chair.

“That his girlfriend?”

“He should be so lucky.”

“We should all be so lucky.”

Boyd stifled the surge of anger he felt at the idea of one of these idiots laying a hand on Ava. There was no room for anger in this plan; anger would only put him on edge and keep him from acting with a clear head.

“Come on,” Kyle shouted to him from the other room. “All we gotta do is charge this thing up and we’re ready to rock. Let’s go!”

“Let’s wrap it up, Boyd,” Pruitt urged in a harsh whisper.

Boyd murmured to “Ava” on the phone, holding up a finger for Pruitt to wait. Pruitt rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and looking out the window, his foot tapping with impatience.

In the living room, Marcus whispered, “You think he knows?”

Kyle laughed. “Don’t worry about Boyd.”

“Kyle, what if he bails on us?”

“We do him now instead o’ later. When he goes down the mine, we’ll just blow him up.” They both laughed.

Boyd couldn’t help a faint laugh as well. At their transparency, at their stupidity, at their arrogance. A lesser man than he would have seen their “twist” coming a mile away. Who better to set up as the fall guy, the stooge, than Boyd Crowder? No one would believe he had really gone straight—after all, he barely believed it himself. 

From the living room, they called for Pruitt. Into the phone, Boyd said, “I gotta go now, Ava.” He hung the phone up and walked past Pruitt, his decision made. They wanted to double-cross him? Well, then, it appeared all bets were off.

“Got you on a tight leash, huh?” Marcus said, getting up as Boyd entered the room.

“I wouldn’t say that.” He took his seat, reaching back for his cell phone, snapping it closed and sliding it back into his pocket.

“Seems to me, Boyd, we’re runnin’ out of time.”

“Well, what it is that you’re askin’ me to do I can do, but radio det leads to a whole new host of complexities. There’s only one way this is gon’ work.”

“How’s that?” Kyle asked, his irritation very thinly disguised.

“You and your boys, you do exactly what I say, when I say it. That’s the only way I can keep us all alive.”

They all looked at him, and he wondered how long they could keep pretending he was anything other than their patsy. But then Kyle threw up his hands in an exaggerated show of trust. “Well, hell, Boyd, many people as you robbed?” He got to his feet, hand over his heart. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He held the hand out to Boyd to shake.

Boyd got to his feet, shaking the hand, feeling that old surge of excitement. It was fun putting together a plan, he had to admit it. Fun to run the plan. Fun to outwit the idiots who thought they were smarter than you.

They got to work getting things set up, including charging the battery for the remote detonator. Kyle left most of the work up to Marcus and Pruitt, pacing back and forth himself like a nervous cat. Boyd filled the sink and began washing up the dishes, taking his time with it, scrubbing each item until it gleamed.

“Is it charged?” Kyle asked, gesturing to the battery that sat at Boyd’s left.

He hadn’t looked, but he thought it probably was. Still, they didn’t need to know that. “No, Kyle, for the fifth time, it is not.”

Before Kyle could complain, the way he had the first four times, they heard a car engine outside. It was too early for Ava, whose shift at the beauty parlor wouldn’t end for another few hours. 

Kyle looked through the window. “Who the hell is that?”

Boyd couldn’t help but smile. Raylan had the most entertaining timing. “Well, that’s a United States Federal Marshal,” he said, keeping his face deadpan, enjoying Kyle’s immediate agitation.

“Well, what’s he doin’ here, Boyd?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Raylan was driving pretty fast. He took the turn into Ava’s front yard with the tires squealing a bit, and pulled to a stop between Boyd’s truck and Kyle’s. Boyd could hear his voice as he emerged from the car.“Hello, fellas. Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“You don’t need to know us,” Pruitt said petulantly. “We mind our own business. Spose it’d be best you do the same.”

“Well, now, that wouldn’t be like me.”

Boyd couldn’t help a grin. There really was nothing quite like Raylan. Now they’d have some fun.

“What do we do?” Kyle demanded of Boyd.

Without leaving the sink, Boyd said evenly, “Well, my play’s always to stop ‘im before he gets on the front porch.”

“Shit, Boyd.” Kyle left the room, and the house, banging the screen door behind him.

Left alone, Boyd took the fully charged battery off the charger, dipped it in the water, then dried it off and put it back on the charger. Then he went onto the porch to make sure Kyle’s big mouth didn’t get them all in trouble. “Step inside to do the dishes for two minutes, look who comes to visit.”

“Boyd. Your friends and I were just gettin’ acquainted.”

Raylan had made them for the two-bit idiots they were, Boyd could see. He leaned against the upright. “I can see that. What brings you up to the holler, Raylan?”

“Just need a word.”

Boyd sauntered down the steps, enjoying the tension—he and Raylan so relaxed, all the others knotted up like Granny’s knitting wool. Stopping in front of Raylan, he suggested to Kyle that he go make himself at home on the porch. Kyle wasn’t happy about it, but he was hardly going to start something in front of a US marshal.

“Now, Boyd,” Raylan said easily when Kyle was out of earshot, “I been doin’ this long enough I can spot outlaws at a thousand paces. Your friends? They’re packin’. One and all.”

“I wouldn’t know, but I’m sure none of them’s carryin’ with ill intent.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“What are you after, Raylan?”

“Oh, your brother Bowman.” Now, there was a name Boyd hadn’t expected to hear today. “You know anything about him tradin’ in stolen papers back when? Draw checks an’ such.”

“Well, there’s little by way of illicit activity in this county that my brother did not have his hands on in one way or another.”

“Which is why I’m here.”

Behind them, the door of Boyd’s truck squeaked as Kyle opened it. They both glanced that way, making sure it was nothing more than Kyle grabbing his jacket, before Boyd replied, “You never really knew my brother Bowman, did you, Raylan?”

“I saw him play football.” 

“Gunned down in his prime by the very hand of the woman I now share his roof with.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Kind of hard to fathom his end, given the life that he lived.”

Raylan took his hat off, holding it up to keep the sun out of his eyes, leaning toward Boyd as if to see in his eyes more than what Boyd was saying with his mouth, so Boyd gave him the answer he was looking for, giving up his brother’s paper-pusher as if it was a sacrifice. In truth, Boyd didn’t much care what happened to the man. If Raylan wanted to put him in jail, more power to him. 

Behind him, Kyle’s voice, loudly. “Come on, Boyd.”

Raising his voice, Boyd said, “Well, I guess me and these boys, we need to get on to work.” Entertaining as it had been to have Raylan stop by, it might prove problematic later. Or it could be useful. It was the kind of gamble that Boyd loved, waiting to see how the die would fall, how he could spin the number to his advantage. He had forgotten what a rush all this clandestine activity could be. “Anything else you need?”

“Not right now.”

“You take care of yourself, Raylan.”

“You, too, Boyd.” It was a warning.

Boyd let it lie, turning his back on Raylan and returning to the idiots on the porch. 

“What the hell was that about?” Kyle demanded.

“Some questions about my dead brother Bowman.”

“Is that right? What kind of questions?”

“It’s personal. Besides, we got more pressing issues to attend to.” He pushed past them all and went back into the house, pretending to discover that the battery was defective.

“We gotta pick up another one!” 

“Hell, no, it’s ninety minutes there and back, we’ll miss the shift.” Kyle fiddled with the battery as though he could make it charge.

“We’ll do it again next time,” Boyd suggested.

“There ain’t gonna be no next time, Boyd!” Marcus shouted, getting in his face. “This the only chance we got!”

“Most important thing to know in this business is when to walk away.”

“We’re not walkin’ away. We’ll hit up the Radio Shack on the way there, try to rig some’n’ up, all right?” Kyle said, getting between Boyd and Marcus.

Boyd nodded, and Marcus allowed himself to be herded from the kitchen by Kyle.

With them all out of the room, Boyd snatched a sheet of paper and scribbled down a quick note for Ava while Kyle stood there and fumed with impatience.

Hanging the note on the refrigerator, Boyd said, “Well, now, that didn’t take long, did it? You want to live long in this business, you got to know your ABCs: Always Be Cool.”

Hands in his pockets, he strolled past Kyle like he didn’t have a care in the world.


	23. Trust

Ava shut the door behind her and leaned against it with a sigh. She liked doing hair, she really did. But dealing with the customers, most of whom thought they were better than she was because they talked better and smelled better with their fancy expensive perfumes—although they didn’t look better, she thought with some pride—and because she worked for their pay. Well, if she did their hair wrong, they would be the ones paying for it, she thought, imagining what she could have done to the last lady who had been so hell-bent on a perm. Come to think of it, that perm was about all the punishment the lady needed, and she had asked for it herself. Seemed happy with it, too, even though it made her look like a poodle. Ava smiled, thinking of her walking around while everyone talked behind her back wondering why she’d done that to her hair.

The house was quiet with Boyd up the mountain at the mine. She liked the quiet, but it was quiet when he was here, too, and still comforting to have someone else in the house she could talk to if she wanted. 

The mail was in her hands, and she leafed through it. Bills, all of it. Most of them just fine, but the mortgage … they were going to foreclose on the house if she didn’t come up with more money. In her pocket were the crumpled bills from today’s tips—not enough. Her paycheck would come through on Friday, but it wouldn’t be enough. Boyd’s rent would come due next week, and he paid it like clockwork, without a murmur, and his share and more of the groceries and electric, but it wouldn’t be enough, either. 

“What the hell am I gonna do?” she muttered under her breath.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Boyd remembered why he had always loved this kind of thing, keeping his cool under pressure, acting like it was just another shift when there was so much to prepare for. Staying on his toes, ready to change the plan whenever needed. You had to be flexible—you never knew who was going to try to screw you over for their own gain, or what might go wrong just from the sheer cussedness of daily life.

The adrenaline felt good. He felt like himself again. How had he thought he could give this up? He supposed he ought to be grateful to Kyle for forcing him back to his old ways again … but then, Kyle intended to kill him and set him up as a patsy, which didn’t make for a situation where gratitude was easy to come by.

They’d seen the payroll get delivered before they started their shift, so at least things were starting off right. It remained to be seen whether they would continue that way. Kyle’s pretended sickness went off well, no questions asked, and they all gave up their cell phones like little lambs. So far, so good.  
________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Ava stuffed the mail in her purse and dropped her purse and keys on the counter. Boyd had left the kitchen in a mess, the sink full of dirty water, which wasn’t like him at all. Last thing she wanted to do right now was clean up after somebody else. She’d been sweeping up those ungrateful bitches’ hair all day. Wouldn’t it be nice, she thought wistfully, if just once she could get home and someone else could take care of her? Never happened with Bowman, sure as hell never did with Raylan, whose mind was always somewhere else, and Boyd was good about cleaning up after himself, but never thought about ways he could step up.

What was she thinking? Boyd was her renter, not her roommate. They didn’t live together, not in any traditional sense. He had no obligation to her—and taking care of her would be overstepping the bounds she had set for him.

Grabbing a glass from the draining board, she opened the freezer and started scooping out ice into the glass before she filled it with water, feeling the cool liquid refreshing her.

On the freezer was a note with her name on it. Boyd never left her notes. Maybe he was apologizing for leaving the kitchen in such a mess? That would be like him.

She opened it, reading the contents: _Call this number 606-142-4875 at exactly 6:05 pm. Don’t tell anyone. Boyd._

“What the hell?”  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________  
It was all up to Ava now. Boyd had prepped everything as well as he could. If Ava didn’t call, if she didn’t trust him, the whole plan might go awry, and he could be dead or back in prison before the end of the day. If she did call, if she did trust him, he could help her keep her house. He would have to wait and see.

Shelby was cool and collected, just like Boyd had predicted he would be. The plan depended on Shelby not doing anything stupid, which was why Boyd had told the idiots about the gun under the desk. He had no desire to be killed in a shootout. And with Kyle behind the gun at Shelby’s head, Boyd could be reasonably certain there would be no accidental weapon discharges that might send the plan off-kilter.

Deflecting Marcus’s attention from himself unfortunately led Marcus to add his gun to Shelby’s problems, and that had the potential to cause problems, Marcus being the hothead he was. Fortunately, Shelby was bent on keeping his head intact, so he held himself together enough to open the safe.

Bless her heart. The surge of relief and elation he felt when the phone in Kyle’s pocket rang was a good feeling. Ava had trusted him. He could make this work now.

As he had anticipated, Kyle took the other idiots with him when he left the trailer. Boyd would never have been that stupid, he thought complacently as he carefully arranged the money and the explosives to suit his own purposes.

He looked at Shelby. “You stick with me and you’ll live to see tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. What do you need me to do?”

“Trust me.”

Shelby took a moment to think that over, then nodded. 

“All right.”

This was the other part of the plan he couldn’t entirely predict. Would the idiots betray him and try to kill him when he was down the mine, or would they play straight? He was pretty sure he knew, but there was always the possibility they might surprise him.

Deep in the belly of the mine, he heard the explosion, and smiled to himself. It was over, and he had won, on all counts.

All that was left was the clean-up. He and Shelby went back up to the surface, finding destruction and chaos waiting for them. And Marcus, still alive. But not for long. Boyd shot him point-blank, and didn’t feel at all bad about it. Some idiots didn’t deserve to live.

“What would’ve happened if they’d checked that bag?” Shelby asked.

“We’d be dead, Shelby.” He turned to the foreman. “I’m sorry to get you mixed up in this. It wasn’t supposed to go down this way.”

“Well, sir, I’m walkin’ away, far as I know. Unless you plan on puttin’ one in me?”

“No, sir, I am not.”

“Then I guess you saved my life. I got nothin’ to complain about. Who’d listen if I did?”

“Then might I be so bold as to ask you for a favor?”

The sirens were wailing in the night, closing in. There wasn’t much time.

“Name it.”

“The cops gon’ come. ATF, dogs, everything our Federal government has to bear. Now, you tell them that I had to go home. It was an emergency. Nothin’ else. Do you understand?”

Shelby was nodding. 

“Shelby?”

“Done, sir.”

They shook on it, and Boyd headed back down the mountain. Now, to tell Ava what he had done and hope she understood.


	24. Why

Ava had been waiting for Boyd for hours, sitting in the stairs in the dark, without the energy to turn on a light. Smoked her way through half a pack of cigarettes, though, trying to calm her nerves, trying not to leap on him in anger when he walked through the door demanding to know what kind of shit he had just gotten her into.

When he opened the door and caught sight of her, there was something in his face she hadn’t seen in a good long while—a life, a liveliness. His eyes were bright and awake, for all that he was filthy and looked like he’d been through a war. Ava liked seeing him like this, some part of her that had been asleep for a long time waking up in answer, but she held on to the knowledge that he had gotten her involved in one of his shady deals, sure as shootin’, and she should kick him out before he got the door closed behind him.

She didn’t, though, her curiosity too strong. Holding perfectly still, she raised her eyebrows in challenge, not letting her expression change.

Boyd shut the door. “Well, I can see by your face you are somewhat troubled.”

Wasn’t that just the damn understatement of the year. She nodded, not sure what she wanted to know, and afraid she would ask how he was before she asked what he had done.

“I can only imagine what I had to do with that.”

She gestured with his note, quoting it. “’Call this number at exactly 6:05 pm. Don’t tell anybody.’”

Boyd put his bag down by the door and brought a chair over, setting it in front of her. “Well, I admit, it was terse.” He sat down in the chair, leaning forward just a little. “I wrote it under some time pressure.” 

She wasn’t having any more of this soft-voiced dancing around the topic. “Boyd, what the hell is this?”

“A favor.”

“And what would’ve happened if I hadn’t called?”

“Maybe you wouldn’t be speakin’ to me right now, Ava.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in, for her to understand what he had trusted her with. A warmth filled her that he had counted on her, but she pushed it back. She had no business being flattered that Boyd Crowder trusted her to be part of one of his underground schemes. And he hadn’t even asked! “Damn it, Boyd,” she said, her voice quivering with anger and a retroactive fear for him, “what’ve you gone and made me a part of?”

“Just savin’ my life.”

He meant it, Ava could see that, but she wasn’t going to be drawn in. 

Boyd shook his head once. “Nothin’ else.” He closed his eyes wearily, swaying a little bit in the chair.

Without thinking, Ava got up, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you fixed up.”

“I’m not hurt.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She took the bottle of Wild Turkey down from the top shelf, with two glasses, and poured one for each of them.

Boyd returned his chair to the table and lifted the glass even as he sat. He started to take a slow sip, but thought better of it, and tossed the whole thing off, shaking his head as it burned its way down, before holding out his glass for another.

Ava watched him like a hawk as he poured, but although he nodded his thanks, he didn’t reach for the glass again. Satisfied, she took her seat again. “Tell me now. Everything. It was those men, wasn’t it? The ones who came by?”

“It was. They’d been following me for some time now, forcing their scheme on me, and I said no. I did. Over and over again. But they wouldn’t take no for an answer—and somewhere along the line it got so I didn’t want to give them no for an answer any longer.” He met Ava’s eyes across the table. “I’m sorry to admit it. I suppose in your eyes that makes me a lesser man. In my eyes it made me feel like a lesser man, without the strength to hold fast against temptation.”

She shrugged, not wanting to commit one way or the other until she heard the whole story.

“They wanted to rob the payroll, send Shelby down into the hole, set up explosives, blow it up while he was down there. I was supposed to go down there, too, set everything up. The plan was, I knocked Shelby out and came back up and then they blew the mine … but I had my doubts about that part. I think they wanted Boyd Crowder to take the fall for them. An easy set-up.”

“So what happened?”

“I created a diversion, did what I needed to do. Then, while I was down the mine, they pushed the remote, only … it wasn’t me they blew up.”

Ava took a shocked breath. “You killed them?”

“I was responsible for their death, in a way, yes … but I don’t think they intended to let me live through the day. Didn’t think I was goin’ to find a way out. Part of me just felt like layin’ down. Then it happened.”

“But you killed them instead.”

“I didn’t have a choice. Now, if they hadn’t of pulled that switch on me while I was down there in that hole, things would have gone down different, so the way I see it, Ava, they killed themselves. With greed and avarice.”

She could see it that way, too, sort of, and wondered if she had been around Crowders for too long. Then it occurred to her what might have happened on the other end of the phone when she dialed. She found she wasn’t horrified, just … wanted to know. “When I called that cell, did I—?”

“No.”

Ava breathed a sigh of relief.

“It allowed me to kick them out of the trailer. I put a little cash on the Emulex, a little Emulex on the cash … and I made sure that the blasting cap went in their packet and not mine.”

“You coulda run when Raylan came by. Just lit out and let the chips fall.” Part of her wished he had; part of her was glad he hadn’t and that he was still sitting here in her kitchen.

He straightened his shoulders, looking at her steadily across the table. “What does it say about me that that thought never crossed my mind?”

Ava leaned forward across the table. She needed this answer, straight, if she didn’t get any others. “Why did you agree to rob that mine in the first place?”

There was no hesitation in his answer. “Because it’s what I do.” They looked at each other, silence stretching between them. “It’s who I am, Ava. Hard as I’ve been tryin’ to pretend otherwise. Everybody else seems to know that but me.”

Unable to argue with him—she had known, Raylan had known, seems these men from the mine and that Dewey Crowe fella had all known—Ava nodded.

“Anyway,” Boyd continued, “I came across that letter that you received from the bank.”

“Boyd.” But she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t wanted him to know how bad it was.

“I violated your privacy. For that transgression I do apologize.”

“So you know that they’re after the house.” He nodded. Ava laughed a little, leaning back for the first time. “I don’t suppose any of that money survived the blast.”

She hadn’t expected a response, but without a word, Boyd leaned down and picked up the bag that lay at his feet, tossing it lightly on the chair next to her. 

“There should be at least fifteen to twenty thousand dollars in there. Now, it’s not enough to pay it off, but enough to buy you some security for a little while.”

Ava picked up the bag, opening it and looking down at the fat wads of cash that lay inside it. “Shit.”

Before she could think of anything else to say, Boyd abruptly looked outside, his head turning back and forth as he listened and watched for something coming. 

He leaned across the table, saying, “Ava, there’s one more favor that I must ask of you,” even as the blue lights of the law began to flash against the curtains.

Shifting nervously in the chair, she listened to the sirens coming closer. 

“Ava, you can help me—or you can refuse. Either way, I will understand.”

Outside, the tires ground on the gravel as the sirens turned off.

Boyd glanced in the direction of the door, and then looked back at Ava. “But I’m gonna need to know your answer right now.”

She stared at him, undecided.


	25. Disrespect

Boyd sat easily in the chair. So far the ATF interrogation had gone about the way he had anticipated, and he would be out of here and on his way home very shortly, as long as it continued to proceed in the same manner. He felt supremely confident, in a way he had not felt in a very long while. Since he went to prison the last time, he believed. Or possibly he had never felt this confident before. He was a wiser Boyd today, a Boyd who had experienced many things that the angry young man Raylan had shot had never imagined. In short, he was at the top of his game.

He almost pitied the ATF agents.

Fortunately, Kyle’s own stupidity made the failure of the plan an easy sell. It had not been a particularly sophisticated plan, it had not been carried out with professionalism, and those involved had died. It would have been difficult to have feigned fear, so Boyd settled for a certain numbness of feeling when he discussed the imaginary threats made against himself and Ava. Well, imaginary against Ava. The threat against himself had been real enough, even if Kyle had never spelled it out in so many words.

The only thing that irriated him was the way they insisted on referring to Ava as Mrs. Crowder. Yes, she was his brother’s widow, but she was a person in her own right. The least they could do was refer to her as Ms. Crowder, and he made that point, as patiently as he could manage, every time the name came up.

The younger ATF agent, less tired and less certain of Boyd’s guilt than the elder, was paying more attention, as well, and he noticed the edge that had come into Boyd’s voice as they mentioned Ava, turning his attack in her direction, making their own threats against her. But it was the wrong way to go, because Boyd knew that he could protect Ava against any threat to her far better than the Federal government, and he was not going to allow her to be involved in this if it took every two-dollar word in his vocabulary to talk rings around these men.

Then the elder one made his first—and last, as it turned out—mistake. He leaned across the table toward Boyd and said, “You know, I was just wondering. Did she screw all your relatives, or just you two?”

Anger shot through Boyd, white-hot and nigh irresistible. It took all his control, and he had a considerable amount, to keep the faint smile on his face, to keep his body from tensing, to remain polite. And he knew, in that moment, that he was much farther gone than he had ever imagined—that he loved this woman, body and soul, and would do anything to keep her safe, even from the filthy minds and thoughts of men such as the one across the table from him.

Remembering, always, his granny’s dictum that you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar, he kept his voice even as he, too, leaned forward and replied, “Now, sir, I know you have an investigation to conduct, but—if you disrespect Ava one more time, I’m gonna come across this table.”

That gave the agent a momentary pause, and then he leaped to the conclusion that Boyd had just handed him a jackpot. He turned to Raylan’s boss and said, “Chief, it seems clear to me that Mr. Crowder just threatened a Federal officer. And I would think that that is reason enough for you to take him into custody.”

Boyd knew his first sense of alarm of the interview. It was entirely possible his veiled threat, politely delivered as it had been, could be the thing that landed him back in jail, far from Ava, unable to keep the Federal government from coming after her.

And then salvation came in the form of Art Mullen, U.S. Marshal. Raylan’s boss stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. “Much as I might like to personally throw Mr. Crowder’s ass in a holding cell, I think a threat against a Federal officer would be a little more specific.” He had come around the table now, and he leaned down into the ATF agent’s face. “Somethin’ more along the lines of ‘If you disrespect Ms. Crowder again, I’ll beat the everlovin’ shit out of you’.”

That shut the ATF up good and proper, and Boyd didn’t waste the moment. “You gonna charge me?”

The answer, it appeared, was no. He was a free man. He was on top of the world.

He exited the interview room with Ava, who had also been released, making an attempt to help her with her coat. He wanted to tell her about the extraordinary feelings he had identified in himself, feelings he could not remember holding for any other woman in his life, but this was neither the time nor the place—nor did he imagine she would receive those feelings with any type of welcome. No, he had to keep this to himself.

Ava brushed off his attempt at helping her, glaring at him, before walking back into the interview room to retrieve the purse she had left there.

Boyd walked over to Raylan’s desk. “Raylan.”

“Boyd.” Raylan looked up and smiled at him. “I am impressed. How is it possible you’re not in cuffs?”

Suddenly, Boyd knew who he could tell about his revelation. Raylan might not want to hear it, he might not believe—but he would understand. Leaning across Raylan’s desk, Boyd said softly, “Well, when someone’s threatening a woman that you care deeply for, there’s no end to the lengths that you will go to keep that woman safe. Now, I seem to recall you bein’ in that situation a time or two yourself.”

As Raylan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, Ava appeared from the interview room with her bag, heading for the door without so much as a glance at either of them. 

Boyd continued, “In fact, I seem to recall you bein’ in the same situation with the same woman.” They smiled at each other, recognizing their similarities as they so often did. “Ain’t that somethin’.”

Pushing himself off of Raylan’s desk, Boyd followed Ava from the room. She might not want to talk to him, he might not be able to tell her what he felt—but he could keep her safe, and that was enough. At least for now.


	26. Roads

“Ava! Wait for me.” Boyd jogged a little to catch up with her.

Pulling the strap of her purse tighter into her shoulder, Ava ducked her head and walked faster, pretending she hadn’t heard him. 

“Ava!”

Clearly he wasn’t going to stop without being told off in so many words, so Ava swung around to face him. “What do you want, Boyd?”

“I …” He seemed at a loss for words, unusual for Boyd. “I wanted to thank you. For not turning me in to the ATF.”

“Seemed like a lot of paperwork.” Truth be told, she wasn’t entirely sure why she hadn’t. She needed time, space, to think about what she had done. Had Raylan sitting there at his desk, just outside the office, had any bearing on her choice to back up Boyd? Or had she wanted the money? Or was it that she couldn’t bear to send anyone, even Boyd Crowder, to jail?

“Well. I take it as a favor.” He was smiling, looking at her with eyes that reminded her … God. They reminded her of Bowman’s.

Ava felt a wave of revulsion sweep over her, revulsion and fear and confusion all mingling together. “I’ve gotta go.”

“I thought we could go back to the house together.”

She was shocked to remember he lived at her house. She didn’t want him there, couldn’t bear to have him there. Not right now. “No. Boyd, I need—time. I need to think.”

He blinked, as if he was surprised by her response, then nodded, taking a step back. “Of course. I’ll just … You go on.”

“Thank you.” Why was she thanking him for not insisting on coming with her to her own house? she asked herself. But, then, if it was still her house, that was because of him, because of what he had done. Had he done it for her? Had he done it because that was who he was? Had he done it because the other men boxed him in?

No, not that one. Boyd could have thought circles around those dummies, Ava thought with contempt. She was amazed that they had even though they could put one over on Boyd Crowder. He had been a lot of things in his life, but stupid had never been one of them.

She got into the car, turning the key in the ignition, then sat forward with her forehead pressed against the top of the steering wheel. What was she going to do? She had committed herself to the lie, for Boyd; she had committed herself to taking the money, from Boyd; she had committed herself to living in the house, with Boyd. There was no getting away from the Crowder men, it seemed.

But what bothered her the most was the growing feeling that she wasn’t sure she wanted to get away from Boyd. He had been uniformly kind and thoughtful and polite in the months he had been living with her. He helped around the house, which his brother had damned sure never done. And he could be fun to have around, his conversation over the dinner table wide-ranging. More often than not, Ava left the table having something new to think about that she had never considered before, and she liked that for the first time someone seemed to appreciate that she could learn new things, and that she might want to.

Putting the car into gear, Ava tore out of the parking lot of the courthouse, hoping devoutly that she would never have to set eyes on the place today, enjoying the speed of the car and the feeling of control she got behind the wheel. She so rarely had that feeling of control anywhere else.

Even as she softened towards Boyd, thinking of the quiet days with him in the house, she remembered the look in his eye in the parking lot, the way for a dizzying, nauseating moment he had reminded her of Bowman. All those half-formed thoughts she was beginning to have about the way she and Boyd seemed to suit each other would have to yield to that undeniable fact, she told herself—that he would always remind her of his brother. 

She pushed in the button for the cigarette lighter and waited, then lit a cigarette, turning up the music, hoping to distract herself. But the song, from the ‘80s, reminded her of Boyd saying he wanted to grow out his hair and become a singer, and she found herself picturing it, laughing at the idea.

The long roads between Lexington and Harlan were filled with the same kind of back and forth. She would apologize to Boyd, she would tell him she had lied to protect him, they would move tentatively forward into … No, no she wouldn’t. She would tell Boyd that was the last straw, that he’d broken his promise and he’d have to go. Picturing the way he would look, stricken but resigned, she knew she couldn’t go that far. She would tell Boyd she’d overlook it this time but that he needed to find a way to go back the mines because she wouldn’t have him under her roof if he kept on down this road.

But she would have to reject the money if she did that, and she needed the money. And could Boyd even get another job in the mines after what had happened? Suspicion would attach to him, regardless of the ATF having let them go.

She pulled up in front of the house, turning the car off, and sat there looking at it, knowing it would be empty, feeling that emptiness as a weight rather than as a freedom, and not having the faintest clue what she wanted to do about it.


	27. Grateful

Eventually Boyd had found someone to drive him home, and he arrived on the porch just as Ava was thawing some pork chops under the cold water faucet. 

He stepped inside cautiously. “Ava.”

“Boyd,” she snapped. Then, feeling bad that she was taking her confusion out on him, “You’re just in time for dinner.”

“I am? I mean, what can I do to help?”

“Go wash up.” She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Maybe over dinner, once she’d finished cooking, which always cleared her head, she would know what she thought and what she wanted to say, but she didn’t yet.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ava was grateful that he went without trying to push her to talk. This new Boyd showed a sensitivity to her moods and what she needed that she wouldn’t have believed possible a year ago. But how long would that last? It had only taken a few months for him to go back to thieving, breaking the law, being dragged into who knew what kind of messes by people out for no good. How long would it take for the rest of his less positive traits to come back? Would she look to him one day for sympathy and understanding and find the same fist that had always met her when she went to Bowman for comfort?

No. Of that she was sure. Boyd was more subtle than his brother, considerably smarter. He wouldn’t do something as easy as hit her … but what he did if he decided to turn that direction would be worse. She was sure of that, too. Could she live in fear, not knowing when she would come home and find that other Boyd in residence, her home no longer her own?

As she thought, her hands were peeling potatoes, turning the pork chops over in the breading, putting bacon grease in the skillet. Familiar tasks, tasks she loved doing. Not for the first time, she mourned what could have been—she’d have been so happy being a wife and a mother, taking an occasional shift at the beauty parlor to get away from the kids. If only the man she had run into first hadn’t been a Crowder.

It was on that bitter note that Boyd entered the kitchen, and Ava turned a black and despairing look at him. Crowders. None of ‘em any good.

“Why don’t I set the table,” he suggested, and he went about doing so, quickly, efficiently, and, most importantly, staying out of Ava’s way, so that by the time she was done cooking, the table was ready and Boyd was seated there, waiting patiently. 

As she leaned across the table to put the bowl of green beans on the hot pad, she happened to meet Boyd’s eyes, and she was startled, both pleased and disturbed by the look she saw there. She wasn’t a stranger to that look, not even from him—but somehow it was … softer than it used to be. Like, instead of seeing her just as a woman, he was seeing her as Ava. Like he was as surprised to be looking at her as she was to be looked at.

Something inside her was warmed by that. It had been a long time since any man had looked at her that way … and she wasn’t too sure if anyone had ever looked at her like he really saw her before. Maybe even a Crowder could change, she thought.

Hastily she set down the beans and turned back to get the gravy for the mashed potatoes before sitting down herself.

Boyd waited until both their plates were full before he cleared his throat. “Can we talk now, Ava?”

No. Not yet, she thought. She didn’t know what she wanted, how she felt, what to say. She wasn’t ready. Would she ever be?

“You already said thank you.” Ava hesitated. “And thank you. For what you did for me. The money, I mean.”

“It was little enough to pay for what you’ve done for me all these months. Not just the roof over my head, but the meals, and the kindness. You didn’t have to take me in, and you didn’t have to be nice about it when you did, and I am … grateful.”

“Well, so there we are. We’re both grateful. Can we—can we leave it at that, Boyd?”

He looked at her across the table, his expressive face still as he considered the question. “Of course we can, Ava.”

Boyd turned his attention to his plate, and Ava did the same, trying and failing to come up with anything else to talk about. It wasn’t the first meal they had eaten together in silence, but it was the most uncomfortable one in a long time.


End file.
